Method and system for self-sovereign information management

ABSTRACT

The present teaching relates to method, system, medium, and implementation for secure data management by a service provider. A request is first received for carrying out a transaction with a user and one or more data items associated with the user are then determined that need to be validated prior to the transaction. A request is then sent to the user seeking to validate the one or more data items. When a cloaked identifier is received from the user with information related to a trusted party, the cloaked identifier is then sent to the trusted party with a request for a validation response. When the validation response is received with an indication that the one or more data items are validated, the transaction with the user is carried out.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/229,034, filed Dec. 21, 2018, U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/229,316, filed Dec. 21, 2018, U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/229,476, filed Dec. 21, 2018, U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/229,567, filed Dec. 21, 2018, U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/229,625, filed Dec. 21, 2018, U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/229,703, filed Dec. 21, 2018, U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/229,768, filed Dec. 21, 2018, U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/229,871, filed Dec. 21, 2018, U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/229,933, filed Dec. 21, 2018, U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/230,032, filed Dec. 21, 2018, and U.S. patent application Ser. No.17/369,467, filed Jul. 7, 2021, all of which are hereby incorporated byreference in their entireties.

BACKGROUND Technical Field

The present teaching generally relates to data management. Morespecifically, the present teaching relates to secure data management.

Technical Background

In the age of the Internet, more and more transactions are completed onthe Internet. Such transactions may be commercial or non-commercial.Some transactions require one party to the transactions to validatecertain information associated with the party. For example, in order fora person to buy beer, the person has to show that he or she is over 21years old. A confidential transaction may require one or both parties toprove a certain level of security clearance. In another example, atransaction may require a party to the transaction to have someindependent source to validate the stated income level. Yet anotherexample is that some transaction may be personal in nature so that itrequires a verification that the person who is engaged in thetransaction is the person intended. In many transactions, the data thatneed to be validated involve personal or private data. In someinstances, confidential or highly confidential information may beinvolved.

For traditional transactions that are conducted over the Internet,validation of certain information regarding a party to the transactionsmay be done via paper work or appearance in person. For example, toclose a real estate transaction, the parties (seller and buyer) mayphysically go to an office designated for closing and present theirpersonal identification information to validate, e.g., they are oldenough to conduct the transaction or any other personal information suchas approval for their income, etc. to the office. For an Internettransaction, much of the information that needs to be validated in orderto proceed to the transaction likely needs to be transmitted over thenetwork which increases the risk of such data being hijacked during theInternet transmission.

As society becomes more and more Internet based, security and privacyconcerns have arisen significantly with respect to private informationtransmitted over the Internet. This is despite the fact thattechnologies have been continuously developed and deployed to secure theInternet traffic because means/tools seem to always emerge that aredeveloped and deployed to circumvent the security measures to hijackconfidential and private information while it is moving through theInternet. Thus, there is a need to devise a solution to address thisproblem.

SUMMARY

The teachings disclosed herein relate to methods, systems, andprogramming for information management. More particularly, the presentteaching relates to methods, systems, and programming related toself-sovereign information management and utilization thereof.

In one example, a method, implemented on a machine having at least oneprocessor, storage, and a communication platform capable of connectingto a network for secure data management by a service provider. A requestis first received for carrying out a transaction with a user and one ormore data items associated with the user are then determined that needto be validated prior to the transaction. A request is then sent to theuser seeking to validate the one or more data items. When a cloakedidentifier is received from the user with information related to atrusted party, the cloaked identifier is then sent to the trusted partywith a request for a validation response. When the validation responseis received with an indication that the one or more data items arevalidated, the transaction with the user is carried out.

In a different example, a system for secure data management isdisclosed. The system includes a transaction interface unit configuredfor receiving, from a user, a request for carrying out a transactionwith the user, a validation information determiner configured fordetermining, based on the transaction, one or more data items associatedwith the user, that need to be validated prior to the transaction, avalidation information solicitor configured for sending, to the user, arequest seeking to validate the one or more data items and receiving,from the user, a cloaked identifier with information related to atrusted party, a validation response solicitor configured for sending,to the trusted party, the cloaked identifier with a request for avalidation response and receiving, from the trusted party, thevalidation response indicative of whether the one or more data items arevalid, and a transaction service module configured for proceeding withthe transaction if the validation response indicates that the one ormore data items are validated.

Other concepts relate to software for implementing the present teaching.A software product, in accord with this concept, includes at least onemachine-readable non-transitory medium and information carried by themedium. The information carried by the medium may be executable programcode data, parameters in association with the executable program code,and/or information related to a user, a request, content, or otheradditional information.

In one example, a machine-readable, non-transitory and tangible mediumhaving data recorded thereon for secure data management by a serviceprovider, wherein the medium, when read by the machine, causes themachine to perform a series of steps. A request is first received forcarrying out a transaction with a user and one or more data itemsassociated with the user are then determined that need to be validatedprior to the transaction. A request is then sent to the user seeking tovalidate the one or more data items. When a cloaked identifier isreceived from the user with information related to a trusted party, thecloaked identifier is then sent to the trusted party with a request fora validation response. When the validation response is received with anindication that the one or more data items are validated, thetransaction with the user is carried out.

Additional advantages and novel features will be set forth in part inthe description which follows, and in part will become apparent to thoseskilled in the art upon examination of the following and theaccompanying drawings or may be learned by production or operation ofthe examples. The advantages of the present teachings may be realizedand attained by practice or use of various aspects of the methodologies,instrumentalities and combinations set forth in the detailed examplesdiscussed below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The methods, systems and/or programming described herein are furtherdescribed in terms of exemplary embodiments. These exemplary embodimentsare described in detail with reference to the drawings. Theseembodiments are non-limiting exemplary embodiments, in which likereference numerals represent similar structures throughout the severalviews of the drawings, and wherein:

FIG. 1 depicts a framework for secure self-sovereign informationmanagement, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIGS. 2A-2D illustrate exemplary types of parties that may operate inthe secure self-sovereign information management framework, according todifferent embodiments of the present teaching;

FIG. 2E depicts an exemplary construct of a cloaked identifier,according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 3A depicts a record owner, via a record owner device, connectedwith different parties operating in a secure self-sovereign informationmanagement framework and information flow thereof, according to anembodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 3B illustrates exemplary types of a record owner device, accordingto some embodiments of the present teaching;

FIG. 3C illustrates exemplary types of validation information that canbe validated via a secure self-sovereign information managementframework, according to some embodiments of the present teaching;

FIG. 3D illustrates exemplary approaches to deliver requested privatedata, according to some embodiments of the present teaching;

FIGS. 3E-3G disclose exemplary secure data partitions and exemplarytypes of meta information, according to embodiments of the presentteaching;

FIG. 4A depicts a service provider connected with different partiesoperating in a secure self-sovereign information management frameworkand information flows thereof, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching;

FIG. 4B illustrates exemplary types of a validation response, accordingto an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 5 depicts a trusted entity connected with different partiesoperating in a secure self-sovereign information management frameworkand information flows thereof, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching;

FIG. 6 depicts a transaction engine connected with different partiesoperating in a secure self-sovereign information management frameworkand information flows thereof, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a secure self-sovereigninformation management framework, according to an embodiment of thepresent teaching;

FIG. 8A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of a record ownerapplication for secure self-sovereign information management, accordingto an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 8B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a record ownerapplication for secure self-sovereign information management, accordingto an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 9A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of a serviceprovider system operating for secure self-sovereign informationmanagement, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 9B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a service providersystem operating for secure self-sovereign information management,according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 10 depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of a trustedentity system for secure self-sovereign information management,according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIGS. 11A-11D are flowcharts of exemplary processes of a trusted entitysystem for secure self-sovereign information management, according to anembodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 12 depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of a transactionengine for secure self-sovereign information management, according to anembodiment of the present teaching;

FIGS. 13A-13C are flowcharts of exemplary processes of a transactionengine for secure self-sovereign information management, according to anembodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 14 is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a party in respondingto an auditing request, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching;

FIG. 15 depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of a securetransaction platform related to secure self-sovereign informationmanagement, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIGS. 16A-16C are flowcharts of exemplary processes of a securetransaction platform related to secure self-sovereign informationmanagement, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 17A depicts an exemplary construct of a secure transaction package,according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 17B illustrates exemplary types of meta information of a securetransaction package, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 17C illustrates exemplary types of information archived in anaccess history of a secure transaction package, according to anembodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 17D is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a secure transactionplatform in response to an access request, according to an embodiment ofthe present teaching;

FIG. 17E is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a secure transactionplatform in response to an access request, according to an embodiment ofthe present teaching;

FIG. 18A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of anauthentication set-up unit, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching;

FIG. 18B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of an authenticationset-up unit, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 19A illustrates exemplary types of authentication information,according to some embodiments of the present teaching;

FIG. 19B illustrates exemplary types of liveness detection modalitiesand information to be used for detecting liveness, according to someembodiments of the present teaching;

FIG. 20A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of anauthentication unit in a self-sovereign information managementframework, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIGS. 20B-20C are flowcharts of exemplary processes of an authenticationunit in a self-sovereign information management framework, according toan embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 20D illustrates the concept of reverse image search to preventreplay attacks, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 21A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of a livenessdetection controller, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching;

FIG. 21B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a liveness detectioncontroller, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 22A depicts the concept of detecting liveness via light strobing,according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 22B depicts the concept of detecting liveness via focused dots,according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 22C depicts the concept of detecting liveness via obfuscation,according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIGS. 22D and 22E depicts the concept of detecting liveness viachallenge/response, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 23A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of an iris basedliveness detector, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 23B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of an iris basedliveness detector, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 24A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of a lightstrobing based liveness detector, according to an embodiment of thepresent teaching;

FIG. 24B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a light strobingbased liveness detector, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching;

FIG. 25A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of a focus dotbased liveness detector, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching;

FIG. 25B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a focus dot basedliveness detector, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 26A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of a dynamicchallenge based liveness detector, according to an embodiment of thepresent teaching;

FIG. 26B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a dynamic challengebased liveness detector, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching;

FIG. 27A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of anobfuscation based liveness detector, according to an embodiment of thepresent teaching;

FIG. 27B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of an obfuscation basedliveness detector, according to an embodiment of the present teaching;

FIG. 28 depicts the architecture of a mobile device which can be used toimplement a specialized system incorporating the present teaching; and

FIG. 29 depicts the architecture of a computer which can be used toimplement a specialized system incorporating the present teaching.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are setforth by way of examples in order to provide a thorough understanding ofthe relevant teachings. However, it should be apparent to those skilledin the art that the present teachings may be practiced without suchdetails or with different details related to design choices orimplementation variations. In other instances, well known methods,procedures, components, and/or hardware/software/firmware have beendescribed at a relatively high-level, without detail, in order to avoidunnecessarily obscuring aspects of the present teachings.

The present teaching generally relates to systems, methods, medium, andother implementations directed to different aspects of a framework forself-sovereign information management. In different illustratedembodiments of the present teaching, the related concepts are presentedin the general networked operational environment in which the presentteaching is deployed. However, it is understood that the presentteaching can be applied to any networked setting including both ageneric and special or proprietary network setting. In addition,although the present teaching may be presented in relation to servicetransactions, the concepts related to the present teaching can beapplied to any other types of nonservice related transactions withoutlimitation.

The present teaching discloses an ecosystem that includes variousaspects of the data management to enable a comprehensive approach forself-sovereign identity and data management at a granularity level asneeded by each specific underlying situation. The disclosed datamanagement network includes a framework involving various partiesrelevant to a transaction as well as the scheme of validatingsecure/private information to facilitate the transaction with minimizedrisks of the secure/private being compromised. This solution providesindividuals with more control over their data/records and issuers andrecipients more trust over integrity of the data/records. It enablesindividuals to present digital records without revealing their trueidentity and, sometimes, the underlying data/records.

The solution disclosed herein empowers record owners with real ownershipof their data/records and the ability of granular access control overtheir data/records. Via this framework, in each situation, a recordowner needs to reveal only as much information they prefer to share on atransactional basis with the record consumer such as a service provider.Different aspects of the present teaching as disclosed herein includesecuring personally identifiable information and other sensitive data,facilitating data access at need-based granularity levels, exercisingdata access control via ephemeral operations, and pseudonymizing datausing a cloaked identifier. The cloaked identifier is for cloaking theidentity of a record owner. This feature allows a record consumer (suchas a service provider) to trust a record without knowledge of the realidentity of the record owner and, hence, achieving zero knowledge proof(ZKP). In some disclosure as described herein, the ZKP feature may beused for exercising verification attributes without access to theattributes in the relevant records.

To ensure secure data access, authentication schemes are also disclosed.Multi-factor authentication may be deployed to ensure that the personwho requests to access secure data is whom the person claims to be.Multi-factor authentication may involve both biometric and non-biometricpersonal identification information. For biometric identificationinformation, a series of templatized and coded biometric uniqueindictors may be used. Some countermeasures against biometric replayattacks are disclosed herein to detect fraudulent means inauthentication. To further improve the strength of biometric informationto be used for authentication, biometric ubiquity may be detected andexploited as an indicator for brute force or replay attacks.

The biggest vulnerability to biometrics is the replay attack, i.e., anefarious party capturing biometric information through surreptitioussurveillance, CCTV, background persons in selfies, self-streaming,through public records or social media or intercepting communicationsduring verification. Such captured biometric information may then bereissued when the nefarious party attempts to access secure data points,duping a verification system into believing that the user has submittedthe biometric information input “live.” To prevent such prevalentproblems, various solutions are disclosed herein to detect liveness in a“person” who sends “biometric” information to a verification system.

To validate secure/private information required for a transaction, thepresent teaching discloses a scheme by which minimum amount or no secureor private information is to be transmitted over the network,effectively minimizing or eliminating the opportunity for malicioushijacking of the secure/private data involved. The present teaching alsodiscloses the mechanism of enforcing data access restrictions, which maybe specified by either owners of such data or parties hosting such data,within the framework of self-sovereign data management as disclosedherein. The self-sovereign data management framework as disclosed hereinis also capable of supporting data auditing at different granularitylevels and facilitating secure data auditing without the risks ofhijacking secure/private data.

FIG. 1 depicts a framework 100 for secure self-sovereign informationmanagement, according to an embodiment of the present teaching. In thisexemplary framework 100, multiple parties are connected via a network140 to facilitate transactions over the network 140. Such partiesinclude record owners 110, service providers 120, a transaction engine150, trusted entities 160, a secure transaction platform 170, andauditing entities 130. Via this framework 100, a record owner 110 canconduct a transaction with a service provider 120 across the network 140so long as required secure or private information (e.g., driver licenseor date of birth) is validated by a trusted entity 160 (e.g., Divisionof Motor Vehicle) at a request of either the record owner 110 or thetransaction engine 150 on behalf of the record owner 110.

Data validation, as a prerequisite of the underlying transaction betweenthe record owner 110 and the service provider 120, may be carried out incompliance with certain data access restrictions. Examples of suchrestrictions may be imposed with respect to the transaction, e.g., thevalidation has to be completed within a specified time frame or thefrequency of validating a particular piece of data may not exceed acertain limit. The data access restrictions with respect to each pieceof data to be validated may be specified by the data owner or a trustedentity that has possession of the data. In some embodiments,restrictions as to data to be validated may also be provided by aservice provider, e.g., requiring that the validation is to completewithin 0.5 hours. For data access restrictions specific for eachtransaction, the trusted entity involved may generate a securetransaction package (STP) with such restriction information storedtherein and save it on the secure transaction platform 170 forenforcement.

The transaction engine 150 is provided as a frontend interface for thetrusted parties 160 to provide, e.g., validation related services torecord owners 110. With the transaction engine 150, the correspondencesbetween different secure/private data and the trusted entities that hostor store such secure/private data may be established at the transactionengine 150 so that a record owner 110 does not have to bear the burdenof remembering which piece of information can be validated by whichtrusted entity. Storing secure/private data with the transaction engine150 also provides a shield to prevent the risks of any piece ofsecure/data being compromised.

FIG. 1 depicts a networked environment in which communications amongdifferent parties is through the network 140, which may correspond to asingle network or a combination of different networks. For example,network 140 may be a local area network (“LAN”), a wide area network(“WAN”), a public network, a private network, a proprietary network, aPublic Telephone Switched Network (“PSTN”), the Internet, an intranet, awireless network, a virtual network, and/or any combination thereof. Insome embodiment, network 140 may include various network access points(not shown), which may provide both wired or wireless access fordifferent parties involved in the framework 100.

FIGS. 2A-2D illustrate exemplary types of parties that may operate inthe framework of secure self-sovereign information management, accordingto different embodiments of the present teaching. FIG. 2A illustratesexemplary types of record owner 110, according to an embodiment of thepresent teaching. A record owner may be an individual, a businessentity, or anyone else that can act to conduct a transaction over thenetwork. An individual record owner may include an online consumer, acustomer or a shopper at a traditional store, a traveler, . . . , or aprofessional such as a graduate student or a professional certificationholder, who can conduct a transaction. Business entities includecompanies, stores (whether online stores, Brick & Mortar stores, or anyother types of unconventional stores) that consume services and arecapable of conducting transactions with a service provider. Theseillustrated types serve merely as examples and it is understood that arecord owner can be anyone who has (secure/private) data associatedtherewith and is able to conduct a transaction with another party.Details related to exemplary operation/implementation of a record ownervia a record owner computing device are provided with respect to FIGS.3A-3B, 8A-8B.

FIG. 2B illustrates exemplary types of service providers 120, accordingto embodiments of the present teaching. As illustrated, a serviceprovider may correspond to business entities that offerproducts/services or facility operators that control access tofacilities. Business entities may include stores, rental offices (carrental, apartment rental, etc.), . . . , or purchase offices (e.g., realestate agencies)., . . . , or any facilities. As discussed herein,stores may be online stores, Brick & Mortar stores, . . . , or any typeof stores that are unconventional, whether in the form or in theoperation, so long as the store is capable of conducting a transactionwith a record owner.

Facility operators refer to a party who job responsibility is to controlaccess to a facility, which can be private, public, or a governmentfacility. Examples of a private facility include a hotel, a club, a bar(not shown), or any place operated by a private person (an individual ora business entity) to provide services. Examples of a public facilityinclude museums, . . . , and various centers such as Kennedy Center,Carnegie Hall, Zoos, etc. Government facilities may include variousfacilities for different governmental operations. Examples includeborder control facilities, governmental buildings, governmental agenciessuch as immigration agency, internal revenue services (IRS), NationalInstitute of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), etc. Insome situations, some facilities, although generally not considered asgovernmental facilities, may also be considered as such when designatedfor some governmental functions. An example is voting facilities set upat normally open access places with access control. Similarly, theseillustrated types serve merely as examples without limitation. It isunderstood that a service provider can be anyone who is designated toprovider certain service and is able to conduct a transaction withanother party by requesting validation of certain secure/privateinformation. Details about exemplary operations and implementations of aservice provider are provided with respect to FIGS. 4A, 9A-9B.

FIG. 2C illustrates exemplary types of trusted entities 160, accordingto embodiments of the present teaching. A trusted entity is a party thatis designated to store some secure data associated with a record ownerand is in a position to validate the stored secure data, either as toits status or as to its value. For example, either a hospital or DMV hasdata about a person's birth date and is in a position to be able tovalidate the person's age so that they are both trusted entities. Asillustrated in FIG. 2C, a trusted entity may be DMVs, private parties,government organizations, . . . , or law enforcement entities. Examplesof private trusted entities include healthcare providers (such ashospitals, insurance companies, . . . , doctor offices, etc.), . . . ,and financial institutions (such as banks, . . . , credit agencies,etc.). Examples of government organizations as trusted entities mayinclude IRS, . . . , department of homeland services (DHS), etc.Examples of law enforcement may include police departments of differentstates, . . . , and the courts (either state or federal) throughout thecountry.

Each of these exemplary trusted entities is in possession of certaindata related to some record owners and is in a position to validate suchdata. For example, a DMV of a certain state has data related to thestatus of each license related to a licensed driver in the state; aninsurance company providing services to a record owner possesses thedata related to the past claim history of the insured and is in aposition to validate the same; a doctor's office is in possession ofsome health information related to its patient and is in a position tovalidate such health information; a police department is in possessionof criminal arrest information of some record owners and can validate assuch; a bank may hold financial information about its customers and canvalidate, e.g., delinquent status of its customers; IRS has records ofall naturalized citizens and is in a position to validate any details ofthe naturalization related information, etc. Thus, any party that is inpossession of some secure/private data of a person (either an individualor a business entity) may be considered as a trusted entity. Detailsabout exemplary operations and implementations of a trusted entity areprovided with respect to FIGS. 5, 10-11F.

Referring back to FIG. 1, the framework 100 also includes auditingentities 150. An auditing entity is a party that is tasked to auditanother. In the context of the framework 100 as depicted in FIG. 1, anauditing entity may audit a service provider 120, a trusted entity 160,the transaction engine 150, or even a record owner 110. Depending on therole of an audited party in transaction being audited, the manner bywhich the auditing is conducted may differ. For example, an auditingentity may audit a grocery store (a service provider) to ensure that allsales related to alcohol complied with the drinking age regulations. Inthis case, the auditing entity may audit based on records related toalcohol sales with a particular focus on the information in the recordsthat all such sales passed the validation of buyers' ages or birthdates. In another example, an auditing entity may want to find out thestatistics of under-age purchases or attempted purchases of alcoholproducts prohibited by the drinking age regulations. In this case, theaudit entity may audit DMVs to see how many birth date validationrequests related to alcohol purchases had been invalidated. Some auditentities may be record owners who try to find out how often its privatedata have been requested and by whom.

FIG. 2D illustrates exemplary parties that may serve as an auditingentity, according to embodiments of the present teaching. As shown, anauditing entity may be a record owner 110, a government organization, alaw enforcement organization, an insurance company, . . . , or a court,etc. In government investigations, depending on the nature of theinvestigation, a government agency may audit different parties directedto different types of secure or private data related to a record owner.Such government organizations include, but are not limited to, theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Federal CommunicationsCommission (FCC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), theNational Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the IRS, . . . , and theFood and Drug Administration (FDA). Examples of law enforcement mayinclude Child Protection Services (CPS), the U.S. Immigration andCustoms Enforcement (ICE) agency, . . . , or the FBI. Examples of aninsurance company acting as an auditing entity may involve investigationof cause of an accident involving its insured customer to check howoften the customer purchases alcohol products in what volume andparticularly whether the customer purchased a large quantity of alcoholproducts within a certain number of hours prior to the accident.

The transaction engine 150 as disclosed herein may be a service provideritself for servicing record owners in self-sovereign data management andfacilitating service providers in validating secure/private data neededfor conducting transactions with its customers (record owners). Althoughutilizing the transaction engine 150 in data management is not anecessity (a record owner may elect to manage the data himself/herself),it may be more efficient and effective for a record owner to interfacewith the transaction engine 150 whenever the need arises. Each recordowner may have different types of data created and maintained bydifferent trusted entities. For instance, one or more DMVs may have theinformation related to the birth date of a record owner, certain banksmay have the information related to the financial information of therecord owner, some doctor offices may have the information related tothe health of the record owner, etc. Such allocation of information mayalso change over time. Managing the distribution of private informationand maintaining over time by the record owners may give rise to the needfor the transaction engine 150.

A record owner may sign up the services offered by the transactionengine 150 and provide the information related to how his/hersecure/private data are distributed to the transaction engine 150 andspecify the access rights/restrictions with respect to each piece of thesecure/private data. The data distribution information as well asassociated access restrictions may be modified whenever needed. For eachrecord owner, the transaction engine 150 may maintain the informationrelated to the distribution of the record owner's data and theassociated access restrictions. When the transaction engine 150 iscalled on for facilitating validation of certain information neededbetween the record owner 110 and a specified service provider, thetransaction engine 150 identifies the source trusted entity (orentities) of the information to be validated based on the designatedallocation provided by the record owner, interfaces with each sourcetrusted entity to facilitate the validation. To serve the record owner,the transaction engine 150 may also interface with the specified serviceprovider. Although the transaction engine 150 is illustrated as a singleengine, in deployment, the transaction engine 150 may be distributed indifferent geographical locations and may operate as a cloud basedsolution. This is to accommodate the possibly wide spread distributionof record owners. Details related to exemplary operation andimplementations of the transaction engine 150 are provided withreference to FIGS. 6-7, 12-14.

The secure transaction platform 170 is an independently deployed andoperated platform for securely storing smart contracts associated withdifferent transactions, including transactions in the context ofself-sovereign data management disclosed herein. To ensure security andidentifiability of such smart contracts, the secure transaction platform170 may be required to possess certain characteristics. Some examples ofsuch characteristics include high security as to platform, distributedin nature, uniqueness in identifying smart contracts, decentralizedgeneration of such unique identifiers for distributed smart contracts toensure overall uniqueness, immutable data (including both immutableledger and tampering proof), etc. The secure transaction platform 170may be implemented using any currently existing or future developedplatform so long as the utilized platform possesses the requiredcharacteristics for the purpose of the self-sovereign data management asdisclosed herein. Details of exemplary operation and implementations ofthe secure transaction platform 170 are provided with reference to FIGS.16A-17D.

Within the ecosystem of the self-sovereign data management framework100, a trusted entity may create and securely store personaldata/records and enable other authenticated persons to access suchpersonal data/records. In some embodiments, a trusted entity may storepersonal data/records along with a transaction identifier in a recordowner's personal storage system with the record owner's authorization.The trusted entity may also store a copy of such data/records in its ownarchives with the record owner's permission. In some situations, arecord owner may provide a long-term access permission to the trustedentity to full or partial data/records at the record owner's behest.Depending on the nature of data/records, in some embodiments, a hashtemplate for biometric information of the record owner may be associatedwith certain data/records, especially for more sensitive personaldata/records. Via this mechanism, it is feasible to associate differentbiometric information with different pieces of data/records so that eachpiece of data/record needs to be unlocked based on its associatedbiometric information. In accessing personal data/records at a trustedentity, in some embodiments, a trusted entity may be pre-authorized by arecord owner to provide data/records to a set of specified dataconsumers (service providers).

A service provider such as a medical facility, a pharmacy, or aninsurance company may request conditioned access and receive conditionedaccess to the personal data/records of a record owner upon theauthorization of the record owner. The conditions associated with eachaccess may be set forth by the record owner which may change fromtransaction to transaction. The conditions associated with each accessmay be stored in a cloaked identifier which may be a hash code pertransaction corresponding to an issued limited use token. Access may begranted by a record owner to an individual service provider or to aclass of service providers with respect to different pieces ofdata/records, providing the record owner the ability to achieve granularaccess control based on needs.

With the disclosure on different parties involved in the framework 100,additional details are provided herein to describe how parties cooperatewith each other and in what sequence they do so in order to complete atransaction in a self-sovereign data management scheme with need-basedgranular operation. Referring back to FIG. 1, an example transaction isdescribed to illustrate the overall information flow to complete atransaction. Assume that a shopper (a record owner) desires to buy beer(either in a Brick & Mortar store or online shopping) from a grocerystore (a service provider operating either a Brick & Mortar grocerystore or an online store). The grocery store (service provider 120)requests that the shopper (record owner 110) validate that he/she isabove the regulated drinking age of 21. The shopper may then send, viahis/her personal computing device with a relevant application deployedand running thereon, the request to a relevant trusted entity 160, e.g.,a relevant DMV holding necessary information to independently prove theshopper's age, to provide a proof to the grocery store in order forhis/her to proceed with the purchase. Alternatively, the shopper maysubscribe to a service from the transaction engine 150 that is engagedto act on behalf of the shopper to select an appropriate trusted entity(whoever is capable of providing the proof based on some knowndistribution of the shopper's information) for the needed validation andrequest such selected trusted entity to validate that the shopper isabove the drinking age.

Upon receiving the electronic request to validate that the shopper(e.g., identified via proper identification information) is above acertain drinking age (e.g., 21 years old), the selected DMV, e.g., afterauthenticating that the shopper is a valid user, generates a cloakedidentifier for this request and sends the cloaked identifier to theshopper (either directly or via the transaction engine). The cloakedidentifier may include different types of information, including, butnot limited to, a string of pseudo-random characters that may beephemeral in nature and represents some contextual identity of theidentity of the shopper. The contextual identity may comprise someparameters that may be required for the underlying transaction betweenthe shopper and the grocery store. In some embodiments, such parametersmay set forth access restrictions to the private data specific to thistransaction, including time period permitted to access such information,. . . , and a number of times to access the information. In someembodiments, the contextual identity may also include informationindicating the nature of the personal information to be validated suchas the legal age and residency of the shopper. In this case, what isincluded in the contextual identity may not be the private informationitself but rather the type of information (age) to be validated for thistransaction.

In some embodiments, the cloaked identifier may specify the private datato be validated without the private data itself provided therein. Inmost situations, the cloaked identifiers related to a particulartransaction specify only some of the private data about a record owner.Thus, the self-sovereign data management framework as disclosed hereinallows a need-based granularity data validation scheme. Because acloaked identifier can include access restrictions, it serves as alimited use token so that when the access violates the accessrestrictions specified in the cloaked identifier, the cloaked identifieritself serves as an authorization tool and may be effectively purgedwhen the specified access conditions are not met. In some embodiments, acloaked identifier is generated using a hash function that can be usedto cloak information with secure and unique means.

In some embodiments, with respect to the same service provider, acloaked identifier may provide information that is a combination of anewly computed root hash per transaction (including all previouslygenerated limited use tokens). Such a newly issued limited use token maybe used to correlate with previous requests from the same party, thusachieving zero knowledge proof. With the cloaked identifier, theidentity of the record owner is masked from the service provider. Viathe self-sovereign data management framework as described herein,validating private information of record owners does not result inpersonally identifying information being stored or possessed by serviceproviders.

FIG. 2E provides an exemplary construct of a cloaked identifier,according to an embodiment of the present teaching. In thisillustration, a cloaked identifier may include information that specifyparties relevant to the transaction, the private data to be validated,geo locations of the parties, . . . , and access parameters that makethe cloaked identifier a limited use token. With respect to relevantparties, the cloaked identifier may include the record owner, theservice provider, and/or the trusted entity that is to validate thespecific private data for the transaction. The geo locations of suchparties, especially the record owner and the service provider may alsobe provided. The private data type involved may be defined based on thelimited information required by the underlying transaction. For example,it may indicate a set of attributes that need to be validated in thetransaction such as residency, valid professional/governmental licenses,age. Such specified types limit what the service provider can seek toverify with the designated trusted entity. In this illustratedembodiment, access restrictions may be specified which will limit theuse of the cloaked identifier as a token. In addition to a number oftimes to use the token and the access duration (e.g., 2 hours), otherlimitations may also be specified such as parameters that can serve as ageofence (not shown in FIG. 2E).

Limitations to access certain private data may be defined based onmultiple considerations. In some situations, there may be legalrestrictions as to the access rights to certain types of data so thatthe trusted entities need to comply with the relevant laws to restrictthe access. In some situations, record owners may desire to limit theaccess of others to his/her private data and accordingly specify certainaccess limitations, which will be within the confines of the legalrequirements yet may go beyond on restrictions. For example, a recordowner may further restrict access of his/her private data from certainstates even though the governmental regulation does not impose suchrestrictions. In some embodiments, the access limitations imposed by atrusted entity may be a combination of compliance of both governmentalregulations as well as the desires of the record owners.

The access parameters specified in a cloaked identifier may be furtherrefined with respect to the particular transaction. That is, a recordowner may further restrict the access by the service provider for thetransaction. For example, if a trusted entity generally restricts theaccess to a piece of private data of a record owner to a period of onemonth and such access restriction is stored with the private data at thetrusted entity. When the record owner sends a request to validate thepiece of private data for a transaction with a service provider A, therecord owner may request that the access of service provider A to thispiece of private data is to be limited to one hour. In this case, themore restricted access to one hour specified by the record owner forthis transaction is used to be included in the cloaked identifiercreated for the transaction.

Continuing the previous grocery shopping example, to enforce the accessrestrictions applied to a particular transaction, a trusted entity(e.g., DMV here) may also generate a secure transaction package (STP)that incorporates the transaction information (the identities of thegrocery store and shopper, date, time of creation of the STP, etc.), thedata to be validated, the nature of the response required (e.g., yes orno to the age instead of sending the age or birth date over thenetwork), and/or access restrictions related to the data and then savethe STP at the secure transaction platform 170. The STP may be saved forfuture verification of access restrictions.

Upon receiving the cloaked identifier, the shopper may use his/herpersonal device to forward a cloaked identifier pack to the grocerystore. In some embodiments, the shopper's device or application runningon the device may incorporate additional information with the cloakedidentifier (e.g., information identifying the DMV or the transactionengine) to generate a cloaked identifier pack and send the cloakedidentifier pack to the grocery store with information indicating wherethe grocery store may contact using the cloaked identifier to validatethe age of the shopper.

Upon receiving the cloaked identifier (and the incorporated additionalinformation) from the shopper, the grocery store may send the cloakedidentifier to the DMV (based on the additional information in thecloaked identifier pack related to the DMV) asking for a validationresponse (e.g., yes or no to the required drinking age). In sending thecloaked identifier from the shopper to the DMV, the grocery store mayalso incorporate additional information such as date and time offorwarding the cloaked identifier (so that the DMV may check against theaccess restrictions). In some embodiments, the network may also mark thedate and time when the cloaked identifier is transmitted over thenetwork so that the access time is independently provided.

When the DMV receives the cloaked identifier from the grocery store, itmay then retrieve the STP previously stored and check against the accessrestrictions before it proceeds to generate a validation response. Sucha STP may be accessed multiple times and each time the accessrestrictions stored therein may be used to ensure that each access is tocomply with the access restrictions. For example, the same shopper maygo to different stores to purchase alcohol products (products may differfrom store to store) and each store may require him/her to prove thedrinking age. In this case, the shopper may directly forward thepreviously received cloaked identifier related to proving legal drinkingage to different stores and all such stores may then contact the sameDMV for validating the same personal data. However, each of suchrequests from a store is subject to the access restriction request. Forexample, as discussed herein, exemplary access restrictions may be atime window by which the related private data (e.g., age) may beaccessed and what is the maximum number of times such information may beaccessed. If the number of times the information may be accessed islimited within the specified time period, the access restrictions mayeffectively restrict the shopper's ability to buy alcohol productswithin a certain time period in a limited number of times.

When the request from the grocery store is within the accessrestrictions, the DMV then generates a validation response, which may bea yes or no answer without any personal information (e.g., birth date oractual age) incorporated in the response and send the validationresponse to the grocery store. Upon receiving the validation responsefrom the DMV, the grocery store then proceeds to determine whether thetransaction can proceed. If the validation result is positive, thegrocery store proceeds with the transaction with the shopper. Otherwise,the grocery store refuses to proceed with the shopper in compliance withthe regulation. Such transaction data (either with the transaction ornot) are then recorded to facilitate future potential audits.

As depicted in FIG. 1, different parties are connected via network 140to conduct transactions with secure data management. To further detailthe role of each party and the information flows among participatingparties, FIGS. 3A-7 depict the connections among different parties fromthe perspective of each of the parties, including a record owner, aservice provider, the transaction engine, and a trusted entity. Below,centered around each of the parties in the framework 100, disclosure isprovided as to whom the party interact with, how, and the role such aparty plays in the overall framework 100 for self-sovereign datamanagement. FIG. 3A depicts a record owner, via a record owner device(not shown), with connections to different parties in framework 100,operating to play a role in the secure self-sovereign informationmanagement and information flows, according to an embodiment of thepresent teaching. A record owner may connect to other parties in theframework 100 via a record owner device. In the disclosure providedherein, a record owner or a record owner device may sometimes be usedinterchangeably referring to an operation conducted by the record ownervia his/her device.

A record owner device may be of different types to facilitate theconnectivity to and operation with others via network 140. FIG. 3Billustrates exemplary types of record owner devices, according to someembodiments of the present teaching. As illustrated, a record ownerdevice may include a computer, a laptop, a mobile device, which can beany of a smart phone, a tablet, . . . , or any other smart devices suchas a kindle, etc., or a wearable device such as a wrist watch/band,jewelries, . . . , or any type of wearables serving as brain-computerinterfaces. There may be any other types of suitable electronic or eveninorganic or organic chemical based computing devices, presentlyexisting or developed in the future.

Those illustrated in FIG. 3B are exemplary types and there may be othertypes of devices that, although today may not possess the capability ofbeing used as a communication device to achieve the operations ofself-sovereign data management, may be configured or modified to serveas a record owner device within the meaning of the present teaching.Examples of such additional devices (not shown in FIG. 3B) include apersonal display device, a personal digital assistant or PDA, a gamingconsole/device, a headset, a device embedded in, e.g., a transportationvehicle (e.g., cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats, ships, trains,airplanes), other smart devices such as set top boxes, smarttelevisions, household appliances (e.g., refrigerators, microwaves,etc.), and/or smart accessories (e.g., light bulbs, light switches,electrical switches, etc.).

Referring back to FIG. 3A, with the record owner device, a record owner,110-a, may communicate with a service provider, e.g., 120-a, for adesired transaction. As a condition of the transaction, the serviceprovider 120-a sends a request indicating the information that needs tobe validated to the record owner. The record owner 110-a then forwardsthe request for validating certain information to either the transactionengine 150 or one or more relevant trusted entities, depending onwhether the record owner has signed up for the service from thetransaction engine. As disclosed herein, the record owner 110-a may berequired to authenticate himself/herself before actually initiating thevalidation process to improve security. In some embodiments, theauthentication may be performed on the record owner device. In someembodiments, the authentication may be performed with respect to eitherthe transaction engine 150 (if the record owner 110-a signs up forservices from the transaction engine) or with respect to a trustedentity that is to validate the private data at issue. In someembodiments, the authentication may be needed on both the record ownerdevice and with a trusted entity and/or the transaction engine 150.Without being authenticated, the record owner 110-a may not be allowedto proceed with the validation process and, hence, without being able toconduct the underlying transaction with the service provider 120-a.

The authentication is to make sure that the record owner is whom he/sheclaims to be. To authenticate with the record owner device may be theminimum security needed. The increased security precaution may beimplemented to require that the record owner also authenticate with thetrusted entity or the transaction engine 150. In this manner, thetrusted entity or the transaction engine may store authenticationinformation of the record owner at the time of establishing thevalidation services and such stored authentication information may thenbe used at the time of services to ensure security. In this way, even ifa record owner's device is tampered with and compromised, the person whois using the record owner's device still must pass the authenticationwith the party he/she is communicating with, i.e., either the trustedentity or the transaction engine, thereby providing another level ofsecurity. Details related to authentication are provided with referenceto FIGS. 18A-27B.

If the record owner sends the request for validating certain informationdirectly to a relevant trusted entity, it receives, as a response fromthe trusted entity, a cloaked identifier associated with the validation.If the record owner sends the request for validating certain informationto the transaction engine 150, it receives, as a response, the cloakedidentifier associated with the requested validation. As disclosedherein, the transaction engine 150 in this case acts on behalf of therecord owner to select a trusted entity, forward the request to theselected trusted entity, receive the cloaked identifier for thevalidation request, and forward the cloaked identifier to the recordowner. In some embodiments, the transaction engine 150 may be configuredto be able to generate a cloaked identifier upon receiving a requestfrom a record owner. In some embodiments, depending on the service termsagreed upon with different record owners, the transaction engine 150 maysometimes rely on trusted entities to generate cloaked identifiers andforward to corresponding record owners but in other situations, maygenerate cloaked identifiers based on information from the record ownersand corresponding trusted entities. In some embodiments, whether acloaked identifier is to be generated by a trusted entity or thetransaction engine 150 may depend on what the trusted entity permits. Inany variation, the transaction engine 150, when implicated, sends acloaked identifier to each record owner during its services.

Upon receiving the cloaked identifier, the record owner 110-a generatesa cloaked identifier pack (detailed later) incorporating both thecloaked identifier and certain information, e.g., indicating either thetransaction engine 150 or a trusted entity for validation, to theservice provider 120-a. With the received cloaked identifier pack fromthe record owner 110-a, the service provider 120-a sends the cloakedidentifier to the designated recipient (either the transaction engine150 or the selected trusted entity), requesting a validation responsewith respect to the certain information involved in the anticipatedtransaction. The service provider 120-a then receives, as a response toits request, a validation response. Based on the validation response,the service provider 120-a then either proceeds with the transactionwith the record owner 110-a, if the validation response satisfies theprerequisite of the transaction or rejects the transaction if thevalidation response indicates that the prerequisite of the transactionis not satisfied.

During the above described process of self-sovereign data management,the secure or private information of the record owner 120-a may not betransmitted through the network 140 even though it can be validated (orinvalidated) via such a process. When no secure/private information istransmitted over the network, the risks that the information be hijackedduring the transmission is eliminated or minimized. This is madepossible particularly when the request (from the service provider) toobtain a validation response does not ask for the secure/private dataitself. FIG. 3C illustrates exemplary types of validation informationthat can be validated via the secure self-sovereign informationmanagement framework 100, according to some embodiments of the presentteaching. As illustrated, there are exemplary types of information thatcan be validated. For example, criminal records, credit scores, age,bank account, . . . , birth related information such as birth date,birth place, . . . , and biological parents. Validation for suchinformation may be sought and the validation via the self-sovereign datamanagement framework 100 may not yield transmission of the privateinformation over the network. For instance, as shown in FIG. 3C, if avalidation request asks for a yes or no answer over the privateinformation related to whether a person's age is older than X, then thevalidation response may be simply yes or no without revealing the ageinformation.

In some embodiments, a service provider may request that the privatedata to be validated be sent over in the cloaked identifier and then theservice provider may forward the cloaked identifier with the privatedata embedded therein to a designated party (either a trusted entity orthe transaction engine 150) together with its request for a validationresponse and information surrounding the access (e.g., date, time, andthe type of validation response sought). In this case, the serviceprovider may request that the designated party to affirm the privatedata. In such an operation, although the private data is sent to theservice provider in the cloaked identifier, the service provider doesnot have access to the private data in the cloaked identifier but thecloaked identifier nevertheless enables the service provider to receivea validation answer that it needs.

Many types of prerequisite conditions to a transaction may be expressedas a confirmation request with a Boolean answer, e.g., “does the recordowner have a criminal record,” “does the record owner have a creditscore of a certain level,” . . . , or “is the record owner older than acertain age.” When a request for a validation response is directed to aBoolean response, even though the service provider may make clear onwhat the prerequisite condition is (which does not reveal privateinformation) in its request, a relevant trusted entity holding privatedata may simply compare the private data with the prerequisite conditionto be validated and generate a validation response without inclusion ofany private information.

In some situations, a request may be for an answer to a question. Forinstance, a question may be “which year did he travel to Europe”directed to, e.g., the State Department of the U.S. government (atrusted entity). In this case, the trusted entity being posed thequestion may check the secure data archive and provide an answer, e.g.,“1971,” which is not the secure data itself (e.g., the precise date maybe “Jul. 24, 1971”).

In some situations, a service provider may request the actualsecure/private data be sent over. For example, a service provider, e.g.,a credit bureau, may need to know all bank account information before itproceeds to check the credit history. Another service provider may berequired to receive information associated with a record owner's birthsuch as birth date, birth city, and the names of the biological parentsof the record owner. When actual secure/private data is requested, theremay be different secure means to send such information. FIG. 3Dillustrates some exemplary means to transmit secure data in the contextof self-sovereign data management, according to embodiments of thepresent teaching. As shown, private data may be delivered from a trustedentity to a service provider via a secure channel between the trustedentity and the service provider. For example, a service provider may,via the cloaked identifier, provide information (either directly or viathe transaction engine 150) to the trusted entity related to a securechannel to be used to deliver secure/private data. As such a channel isdynamic and maybe transient in nature (established for each transaction)and the information related to the secure channel is transmitted via thecloaked identifier, it is more secure.

Another exemplary means to deliver private data to a service provideris, as illustrated in FIG. 3D, by embedding the requested private datain the cloaked identifier. In this alternative, when a service providerforwards the cloaked identifier (received from the record owner) to atrusted entity (directly or via the transaction engine 150), the trustedparty may respond with the information specifically for uncloaking thecloaked identifier to extract the private data. In this manner, as thecloaked identifier and the information to uncloak the cloaked identifierare transmitted at different times, thereby minimizing the risks thatthe private data can be hijacked from the network 140.

Yet another exemplary alternative to deliver private data to a serviceprovider is, as shown in FIG. 3D, by incorporating the private data in asecure transaction package (STP) and storing the STP on the securetransaction platform 170 based on a unique STP identifier (STP ID),which uniquely identifies the STP associated with the invalidationrequest. The STP is generated based on a request from a record owner tovalidate certain private data so that relevant private data may then becoded and stored in the STP before it is saved on the secure transactionplatform 170. As disclosed herein, the secure transaction platform issecure with the mechanism of uniquely identifying each smart contract(STP) wherein the data stored therein is immutable. The STP ID may thenbe sent to the service provider for secure access. In this option, theservice provider may provide its secure credential to the trusted entityso that the trusted entity may incorporate the credential of the serviceprovider in the STP so that at the time of access to the STP,authentication is performed on the service provider to minimize therisks.

When a record owner performs self-sovereign data management via thetransaction engine 150, the record owner may communicate with thetransaction engine 150 on various matters, including what are thesources of different pieces of private data, i.e., which trusted entityhas which piece(s) of private data and the access restrictions to beapplied to the private data. In different situations, private data maybe held by different trusted parties, e.g., DMV with information onbirth date, license status, residence, driving record, etc.; doctoroffices with health-related information; banks with financialinformation, police department with criminal offense information; . . ., credit bureau with credit related information. Information related towhich piece(s) of private data are possessed by which trusted party maybe provided to the transaction engine 150 so that a data partitionscorresponding to each record owner may be generated and used for futureservices.

FIGS. 3E-3G disclose exemplary secure data partitions with links to hostsources and illustrative meta information thereof, according toembodiments of the present teaching. FIG. 3E shows partitions of privatedata of a record owner, in which each partition includes one or morepieces of private data. For example, in this example, there are Npartitions of private data, with partition 1 having multiple pieces ofprivate data sub-P11, sub-P12, . . . , sub-P1 i, sub-p1 k 1, . . . ,partition N having multiple pieces of private data sub-PN1, sub-PN2,sub-PNi, sub-PNkn. Each of these partitions may be linked to a trustedentity and such information may be recorded in some meta informationassociated with the record owner. The partitions may be recorded by thetransaction engine 150 so that when the record owner requests tovalidate a particular piece of private data, the transaction engine 150may determine, based on the recorded partitions as shown in FIG. 3E, towhich trusted entities the transaction engine 150 needs to contact forthe validation.

As discussed herein, meta information for the partitions of the privatedata associated with each record owner may also be archived tofacilitate services. FIG. 3F illustrates exemplary types of metainformation associated with each partition, according to embodiments ofthe present teaching. As illustrated, meta information for eachpartition may include information related to the source (trusted entity)of the private data in the partition, access restrictions to be appliedto each access attempt of any piece of private data, validation inquirytypes permitted, type of authentication information to be used toauthenticate the record owner, the identifier of the trusted entity(data source), and optionally the information to be used to authenticatethe transaction engine 150 with the trusted entity.

FIG. 3G shows an exemplary construct for meta information for apartition of private data, according to some embodiments of the presentteaching. In this exemplary construct for meta information, source ID isprovided to identify the trusted entity that hosts the private data inthe partition, access restrictions to be applied to any access to anypiece of private data in the partition, . . . , the inquiry types thatare permitted with respect to any piece of private data in thepartition, and the authentication information to be used to authenticatethe record owner. In some embodiments, the access restrictions mayinclude restriction on access time, e.g., restricted to a period of timeafter the initial request is made, the number of times the data can beaccessed after the initial request, . . . , the party or parties thatcan request to validate the data, and/or conditions related togeographical limitations or geofence. As discussed herein with referenceto FIG. 3D, the permitted inquiry types may also be limited, e.g., toBoolean type, question type, . . . , or data type. The authenticationinformation specifies the type of information to be used to authenticatethe record owner, including biometric and/or non-biometric informationand each may involve multiple pieces of authentication information.Biometric information may include fingerprint/palm or veins thereof,face, iris, etc. Non-biometric authentication may involve password,security code, security questions, etc. In some embodiments, theauthentication information may be generated with either trusted partiesinvolved or the transaction engine 150.

In some embodiments, access restrictions may be specified for an entirepartition. In alternative embodiments, different access restrictions maybe specified for different pieces of private data in the same partition.In yet other exemplary embodiments, some access restrictions may beapplied to the entire partition and some of the access restrictions maybe applied to a portion of the private data in the partition. Theconstruct of the meta information may be accordingly designed tofacilitate such different embodiments. In some situations, the accessrestrictions may also be established at the time of the request forvalidating any piece of data so that the dynamic access restrictions maybe applied to that relevant piece of data for the specific validation.Such dynamic access restrictions may be specified by the record owner inmaking the request. In yet other embodiments, the access restrictionsmay be set to default initially with respect to the partition ordifferent pieces of data in the partition but may be modified fromrequest to request. In some embodiments, the access restrictions of somepieces of private data may be set by the trusted entities that host theprivate data (instead of by the record owner), e.g., the more privatethe data is, the more restrictions apply. But such restrictions may beupdated when certain criteria are met.

FIG. 4A depicts the connections between a service provider (120-a) withother parties operating in the secure self-sovereign data managementframework 100 and information flows among relevant parties, according toan embodiment of the present teaching. As shown, the service provider120-a is connected to a record owner 110-a and they operate in thesimilar manner as what is disclosed with respect to FIG. 3A, i.e., whencontemplating a transaction with the record owner 110-a, the serviceprovider 120-a requests that the record owner 110-a validate certaininformation as a prerequisite to the desired transaction. The certaininformation to be validated is determined based on information in adatabase 410 storing validation requirement configurations with respectto different transactions. For example, if the service provider is agrocery store and a record owner 110-a desires to buy beer, thevalidation requirement configuration corresponding to this transactionmay be that the record owner has to be at least 21 years old.

After sending the request to the record owner 110-a, the serviceprovider 120-a receives, from the record owner 110-a, a cloakedidentifier pack which provides both the cloaked identifier from atrusted entity that hosts the private data to be validated as well asinformation related to where the service provider 120-a is to send thecloaked identifier to in order to seek a validation response.

As disclosed herein with reference to FIG. 1, a service provider may beconnected to both a trusted entity or to the transaction engine 150. Insome embodiments, it may depend on whether the record owner 110-amanages data via the transaction engine 150. For example, if the recordowner does use the transaction engine 150, the service provider 120-amay be directed to send the cloaked identifier to the transaction engine150 so that the transaction engine may act on behalf of the record ownerto complete the rest of the steps in validating the information. If therecord owner handles data management directly with different trustedentities, it may direct the service provider to request for a validationresponse directly from some specified (e.g., in the cloaked identifierpack) trusted entities. It may also be that the record owner sometimeshandles the data management directly with some trusted entities but insome transactions, the record owner handles via the transaction engine150. In each situation, the record owner may accordingly generate thecloaked identifier pack with information specifically directing theservice provider how to proceed.

As shown in FIG. 4A, the service provider 120-a may send the receivedcloaked identifier to the transaction engine 150 with a request forvalidation response and subsequently receive the requested validationresponse from the transaction engine 150. In an alternative route, theservice provider 120-a may send the received cloaked identifier to oneor more specified trusted entities for a validation response from eachand then subsequently receives, from each of the trusted entities, avalidation response to the inquiry to that trusted entity. When theservice provider 120-a sends a request for a validation response to aparty (the transaction engine 150 or a trusted party), the request mayalso incorporate additional information related to the inquiry so thatsuch additional information may be used to check against the accessrestrictions related to the piece of data to be validated. For example,if an access restriction demands that the validation request has to bemade within 0.5 hour after the record owner 110-a requested for thecloaked identifier and the number of inquiries starting from the time ofthe initial request from the record owner 110-a cannot exceed 5. In thiscase, the service provider may be required to time stamp its request toa designated party (a trusted entity or the transaction engine) for avalidation response so that the time represented by the time stamp maybe used to compare against the set access restrictions. If the timestamp indicates that it has exceeded the permitted time period foraccess, the request for a validation response may be denied.

The service provider 120-a may also specify the type of validationresponse to seek. For instance, the inquiry related to the validationmay seek for a Boolean response, e.g., “is the record owner 110-a atleast 21?” The inquiry may also seek an answer for a question such as“when did the record owner visit Europe?” As discussed herein, in somesituations, the inquiry from the service provider 120-a may also seekdata in a validation response, e.g., “in which city was the record ownerborn?” Based on the specified inquiry type, a trusted entity thatultimately receives the request may also examine against the permittedinquiry types for the private data and makes a determination as towhether the requested validation response can be provided to the serviceprovider. FIG. 4B illustrates exemplary types of validation response,according to an embodiment of the present teaching.

FIG. 5 depicts how a trusted entity connects to different partiesoperating in the secure self-sovereign information management framework100 and information flows thereof, according to an embodiment of thepresent teaching. As discussed herein, a trusted entity is a party thathosts some secure/private data of some customers (record owners) andwhenever it is called upon by a customer to validate the private datahosted therein, it is able to validate the private data in question. InFIG. 5, the trusted entity 160 is connected to three parties via thenetwork 140 (not shown here), including a record owner (customer) 110-a,the transaction engine 150, a service provider 120-a, as well as thesecure transaction platform 170. In addition, as discussed herein, inoperation, the trusted entity 160-a may interface directly with a recordowner 110-a or may interface with the transaction engine 150 that actson behalf of the record owner 110-a.

When the record owner 110-a desires to conduct a transaction with aservice provider 120-a, the record owner 110-a receives a request fromthe service provider 120-a asking the record owner to validate someprivate information. When the record owner 110-a interacts directly withtrusted entities in its data management, to initiate the validationprocess, the record owner 110-a may contact directly an appropriatetrusted entity (e.g., trusted entity 160-a) for validating the privatedata hosted by the selected trusted entity at its local secure database510. This is achieved by directing the request from the service providerindicting the private data to be validated, to the trusted engine 160-a.Upon receiving the request from the record owner 110-a, the trustedentity 160-a generates accordingly a cloaked identifier associated withthe validation request and sends the cloaked identifier to the recordowner 110-a.

When the record owner 110-a uses the services from the transactionengine 150 for its secure data management, the record owner 110-ainstead sends a validation request to the transaction engine 150 withinformation indicative of what needs to be validated. Upon receiving thevalidation request from the record owner 110-a, the transaction engine150 acts on behalf of the record owner. In doing so, the transactionengine 150 may first determine an appropriate trusted entity based onthe information stored in the information distribution database 370 (seediscussion with reference to FIGS. 3E-3G). Once the trusted entity isdetermined based on meta information, the transaction engine 150 maysend a request for validating the secure/private data at issue to suchdetermined trusted entity.

Upon receiving the request for validation from the transaction engine150, the trusted entity 160-a then generates accordingly a cloakedidentifier associated with the validation request and sends the cloakedidentifier to the transaction engine 150, which then forwards thecloaked identifier to the record owner 110-a. In either of thesituations described above (contacting directly with a selected trustedparty or via the transaction engine 150), the record owner 110-a may berequired to authenticate himself/herself before initiating thevalidation process. Without passing the authentication, the record owner110-a or the person who is operating a record owner's device to attemptto initiate the validation process may be denied of the request. Detailsrelated to authentication are provided with reference to FIGS. 18A-27B.

When the trusted entity 160-a ascertains the private data to bevalidated (based on the request for validation, either directly from therecord owner or from the transaction engine 150), it may also proceed toretrieve the access restrictions and/or permitted inquiry typesassociated with the private data from, e.g., the local secure database510, and incorporate such specified limitations into the cloakedidentifier and/or into a secure transaction package STP. Such generatedSTP may be stored, with a unique identifier TP ID, on the securetransaction platform for future access. The cloaked identifier and theTP ID may be linked as a pair and stored as such so that when thecloaked identifier is received later with specifics related to theaccess with inquired validation response, the STP may be retrieved tocheck if any of the future access meet the specified access limitations.

As discussed with reference to FIGS. 4A, when the record owner 110-areceives the cloaked identifier (either from a selected trusted entityor from the transaction engine), the record owner generates a cloakedidentifier pack and sends it to the service provider 120-a. The cloakedidentifier pack may incorporate both the cloaked identifier as well asadditional information indicting, e.g., which party (the selectedtrusted entity or the transaction engine) the service provider 120-a isto contact to seek a validation response. When the service provider120-a receives the cloaked identifier pack, it may extract the cloakedidentifier and send a request for a validation response with the cloakedidentifier to either the selected trusted entity 160-a or to thetransaction engine 150. The request for a validation response may alsoinclude additional information such as time stamp, geographical locationof the service provider, etc. The request for a validation response,together with the additional information, may ultimately be received bythe trusted entity 160-a (either from the record owner directly or fromthe transaction engine 150).

Once receiving the request for a validation response, the trusted entity160-a retrieves the STP stored on the secure transaction platform 170based on the TP ID corresponding to the cloaked identifier and checkswhether the request satisfies the access limitations imposed on theprivate data to be validated. For example, the trusted entity maycompare the additional information related to the request with theaccess limitations stored in the STP (including, e.g., restrictions,inquiry types, etc.) and see, e.g., whether the inquiry type ispermitted, whether the time stamp is within the restricted access timeperiod, whether the request is from a locale within the geofencespecified, . . . , whether the access exceeds the allocated count. Ifthe request is within the access limitations, the trusted entity 160-agenerates the requested validation response and sends to either theservice provider 120-a or the transaction engine 150, which thenforwards the validation response to the service provider 120-a. If thevalidation response indicates that the private data is validated, thetransaction between the record owner 110-a and the service provider120-a may proceed. Otherwise, the transaction may not be conducted.

FIG. 6 depicts how the transaction engine 150 connects with differentparties operating in the secure self-sovereign information managementframework 100 and information flows thereof, according to an embodimentof the present teaching. As discussed herein, the role of thetransaction engine 150 is to provide services to different parties,including record owners and service providers and act on behalf of themto interface with trusted entities to accomplish secure data managementand validation.

As such, FIG. 6 shows that the transaction engine 150 connects to allthree types of parties, record owners, service providers, and trustedentities and plays a role of interfacing between record owners andservice providers who are on the side of needing to validate certainsecure/private data in order to conduct transactions and the trustedentities who are on the side of being able to provide the neededvalidation of secure/private data at issue. As discussed above on theinformation flow among different parties, when a record owner uses thetransaction engine 150 for services, whenever the need arises (e.g.,validation of private data in order to conduct a transaction with aservice provider), the record owner sends a request for validatingcertain private data to the transaction engine. With the request, thetransaction engine 150 determines an appropriate trusted entity thathosts the private data at issue and sends a validation request to suchdetermined trusted entity.

When the transaction engine 150 receives a cloaked identifier from thetrusted entity for the validation request, it forwards the cloakedidentifier to the record owner, who subsequently sends a cloakedidentifier pack to the service provider (see discussion with respect toFIGS. 3A, 4A). Based on the cloaked identifier pack, the serviceprovider extracts the cloaked identifier and sends the extracted cloakedidentifier to the transaction engine 150 with additional informationincluded which may specify the inquiry intended with respect to theprivate data and access information such as time stamp and geographicallocation of the service provider.

Upon receiving the cloaked identifier and the additional informationassociated with the inquiry from the service provider, the transactionengine 150 sends the cloaked identifier as well as the additional accessrelated information to the trusted entity. Subsequently, the transactionengine 150 receives a validation response from the trusted entity as aresponse to the request from the service provider. The transactionengine then forwards the validation response to the service provider.

The above disclosure specifies the connections and operations from theperspective of each of the parties involved in the framework 100. FIG. 7is an overall flow of information corresponding to an exemplary processof the secure self-sovereign data management framework 100, according toan embodiment of the present teaching. This flow summarizes theinformation flows from the perspectives of different parties.Specifically, at 710, a record owner communicates with a serviceprovider on a potential transaction. To proceed, the record ownerreceives, at 715 from the service provider, a request for the recordowner to validate certain information as a condition to the transaction.The record owner initiates the process of validation by generating, at720, a request to validate the required private data and determining, at725, whether the transaction engine 150 is involved. If the record owneris to use the services from the transaction engine 150, the record ownersends, at 740, the request for validating certain private data to thetransaction engine. Otherwise, the record owner is to interface with anappropriate trusted entity directly. In this case, the record ownerdetermines, at 730, a trusted entity that hosts the private data atissue and then sends, at 735, the request for validating the privatedata to the trusted entity.

At 745, the record owner is authenticated in order to move forward withthe validation request. The authentication may be performed as asecurity measure. As discussed herein, although the authentication stepis presented in FIG. 7 after the request for validation is sent, theauthentication may also be performed at a different time or with respectto different party (or parties). For instance, the authentication may beperformed on the record owner's device prior to the step 720, i.e.,ascertaining the person operating the device is whom he/she claims to bebefore generating a validation request. The authentication may also beperformed with the trusted entity or the transaction engine prior to therequest for validating private data is sent so that the request is sentonly after the receiving side (either the trusted entity or thetransaction engine) makes sure that the person who intends to initiatethe validation process is whom he/she claims to be. The authenticationmay also be performed after the request for validation is sent to therecipient so that the recipient side (a trusted entity or thetransaction engine) can ascertain that the person who sends the requestis whom he/she claims to be before the recipient moves forward with thenext steps.

Upon successful authentication, the trusted entity (either as the directrecipient of the request or the ultimate recipient of the request fromthe transaction engine) generates, at 750, a cloaked identifiercorresponding to the request and saves, at 755, a STP with accesslimitations (access restrictions, inquiry types, etc.) at the securetransaction platform 170. The generated cloaked identifier is then sentout, at 760, to the record owner (if direct) or the transaction engine.When the record owner receives the cloaked identifier, either directlyor indirectly via the transaction engine, it forwards it to the serviceprovider at 765. Upon receiving the cloaked identifier, the serviceprovider sends, at 770, the cloaked identifier with additionalinformation related to the access to either the trusted entity or thetransaction engine to seek a validation response to its inquiry relatedto the private data at issue.

Upon receiving (either from the service provider directly or indirectlyvia the transaction engine) the cloaked identifier and the additionalinformation specifying the inquiry directed to the private data at issueand the access information, the trusted entity accesses, at 775, the STPpreviously stored so that the access limitations associated with theprivate data may be evaluated based on the inquiry specified as well asthe access information associated with the service provider. The trustedentity then generates, at 780, a validation response with respect to theprivate data and sends, at 785, such generated validation request to theservice provider (either directly or via the transaction engine). Thevalidation response may be either a rejection, if any of the accesslimitations is violated, or a response directed to the validity of theprivate data and formulated based on the inquiry (e.g., Boolean or ananswer to a question or the private data itself).

Upon receiving the validation response, the service provider thenverifies, at 790, whether the validation response satisfies thetransaction requirement and completes, at 795, the transaction if thevalidation response indicates that the prerequisite conditionsassociated with the transaction have been met. If the validationresponse indicates that the prerequisite conditions are not met, theservice provider may not proceed with the transaction (not shown).

FIG. 7 is a general operational flow of the framework 100 and it may notinclude all other possible operational steps needed such as how thetransaction engine 150 plays a middle man role, etc. However, suchpossible operational arrangements have been discussed throughout thedisclosure of the present teaching so that the specific steps as listedin FIG. 7 are not to be used as limitations to the present teaching butrather merely serve as an illustration.

In the above paragraphs, various functional roles and relationshipsamong different parties or sub-groups of parties in the context ofself-sovereign data management framework 100 are described. Below,exemplary implementations of each of the parties involved in theframework 100 will be provided. The illustrated exemplaryimplementations of different parties to be presented herein are merelyillustrative and do not serve as limitations to the present teaching. Itis understood that any alternative embodiment, operational flow,implementations of any of the parties in framework 100, andrelationships among them devised to achieve the disclosed roles of theparties is within the scope of the present teaching.

FIG. 8A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of the recordowner system, according to an embodiment of the present teaching. Asdiscussed previously, the record owner 110 operates to play a role inthe context of self-sovereign data management framework 100 via a recordowner device or an application running on the record device to performthe functions of the record owner to manage secure data and transactionsrelated thereto. So, the record owner system as disclosed herein maycorrespond to such an application provided for facilitate the recordowner to play the role as disclosed. It may also correspond to aspecialized device as a special purpose record owner device enabling itsuser to play the role as a record owner in the context of theself-sovereign data management framework 100.

In this illustrated embodiment, a record owner device 800 may have arecord owner application 805 installed thereon which, when running onthe device 800, facilitates a record owner's interface with otherparties in framework 100 (see FIG. 1) and to carry out different tasksassociated with a record owner in data management in a self-sovereignmanner. The record owner application 805 comprises a record ownerinterface unit 810, an authentication set-up unit 815, a validationinformation distribution configurator 820, a record owner authenticationunit 835, a cloaked ID pack generator 850, and various communicationunits with other parties, including a trusted entity communication unit840, a transaction engine communication unit 845, and a service providercommunication unit 830.

Among these components, some are provided for interface with the recordowner for, e.g., setting up required operational parameters (partitionsof secure/private data, access restrictions for different pieces ofdata, authentication information/parameters, etc.). This includes therecord owner interface unit 810, the validation information distributionconfigurator 820, and the authentication set-up unit 815. During the setup time, the record owner may communicate with the record ownerapplication 805 via the record owner interface unit 810, which connectswith, e.g., the validation information distribution configurator 820 tospecify which secure/private data reside where with what accessrestrictions.

As disclosed herein, the record owner may elect to manage the securedata his/herself. In this case, the record owner may achieve that byinteract with the validation information distribution configurator 820(via the record owner interface unit 810) that may connect withdifferent trusted entities via the trusted entity communication unit 840to provide any specified information by the record owner to any of thetrusted entities. If the record owner is to subscribe to services fromthe transaction engine 150 for self-sovereign data management, therecord owner interfaces with the record owner application 805 via theinterface 810, which connects with the validation informationdistribution configurator 820 to facilitate the record owner to set updata partitions with meta information for each of such partitions. Suchset up information is then provided by the validation informationdistribution configurator 820 to the transaction engine 150 via thetransaction engine communication unit 845. The data partitiondistribution configurations that are set up in this manner may also bestored locally at the record owner device in addition to being stored atthe relevant parties (e.g., at the trusted entities or at thetransaction engine 150). This will assist the record owners inidentifying the source of each piece of private data whenever validationof the piece of data is required.

During the setup, the record owner may also set up the authenticationinformation to be used for future authentication. As discussedpreviously, the authentication may be performed at the record ownerapplication 805 on record owner device 800 or with respect to a serviceprovider, e.g., the transaction engine or a trusted entity. To set upthe authentication with the record owner application 805, the recordowner interfaces with the record owner interface unit 810, whichconnects with the authentication set-up unit 815 to establish theauthentication information. As discussed herein, the user may elect toapply biometric or non-biometric authentication information or anycombination thereof. Non-biometric authentication information mayinclude password and Q&As and biometric information for authenticationmay include fingerprint, palm, veins, face, or iris. Such establishedauthentication information and the authentication protocol may be savedin the local private database 817 and later such information may beretrieved for authentication of a record owner at the application level.

The authentication information and protocol may also be established withrespect to a service provider, whether it is a trusted entity or thetransaction engine 150. In this case, the authentication set-up unit 815communicates with the service provider to achieve the set up. This mayalso be accomplished via the trusted entity communication unit 840 orthe transaction engine communication unit 845, respectively (theconnections internal to the application 805 are not shown). In someembodiments, to set up the authentication information with a serviceprovider, the form (biometric or non-biometric or a combination thereof)and base authentication information (e.g., password, Q&As, biometricinformation for authentication) may be stored at the service provider sothat the record owner may present any authentication information theservice provider requests on-the-fly for authenticating a record ownerduring a validation session. Details on authentication are provided withreferences to FIGS. 18A-27B.

FIG. 8B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a record owner system,according to an embodiment of the present teaching. Steps 855-862 areperformed for the initial set up. Specifically, at 855, the record ownermay specify whether he/she will conduct self-sovereign data managementdirectly with trusted entities or via the transaction engine 150. Insome embodiments, the record owner may elect to use the transactionengine on all data management tasks. In some embodiments, the recordowner may be permitted to manage some secure data via directcommunication with relevant trusted entities but some secure data viathe transaction engine. For each party the record owner elects to handlesecure data management, the record owner sets up, at 860, validationinformation distribution configurations by specifying the source(trusted entity) of secure data and setting up access limitations(including restrictions as to time, count, geofence, permitted inquirytypes, etc.). At 862, the record owner establishes authenticationinformation either with the record owner application 805 or with respectto a party, e.g., either trusted entities and/or transaction engine.

In some embodiments, after the initial set up, in operation, when therecord owner receives, at 864, a request from a service provider via theservice provider communication unit 830 for validating certain privatedata for a desired transaction, the service provider communication unit830 invokes the record owner authentication unit 835 to performauthentication of the record owner. If the authentication fails,determined at 867, the process goes to exception handling and theoperation exits so that the person who interacts with the record ownerapplication is considered invalid and not permitted to operate further.The authentication may be performed locally at the record owner deviceor remotely with respect to a party (either a trusted entity or thetransaction engine) that hosts the secure/private data to be validated.

If the authentication is successful, determined at 867, it is furtherdetermined, at 868, to which party (a trusted entity or the transactionengine) the request to validate the private data is to be sent. When thesecure/private data management is via the transaction engine, thetransaction engine communication unit 845 is invoked to send, at 872, arequest for validating the secure/private data at issue to thetransaction engine 150. This may be determined based on the archivedvalidation information distribution configurations stored in 825. If thesecure/private data to be validated is via a trusted entity directly,also determined based on validation information distributionconfigurations in 825, the trusted entity communication unit 840 isinvoked to send a request for validating the secure/private data atissue to a designated trusted entity.

After the request for validation is sent out, the record ownerapplication 805 receives, at 874, a cloaked identifier from therecipient of the request transmitted earlier. The record ownerapplication 805 then invokes the cloaked identifier pack generator 850to create a cloaked identifier pack which includes the received cloakedidentifier as well as, e.g., information related to the source fromwhich the cloaked identifier is received (a trusted entity or thetransaction engine). The cloaked identifier pack is sent, at 876, to theservice provider via the service provider communication unit 830. Whenthe service provider communication unit 830 subsequently receives, at878, a confirmation from the service provider as to the validity of thesecure/private data, the record owner application proceeds to complete,at 880, the intended transaction.

The record owner device and record owner application 805 are describedto achieve certain functionalities to enable a record owner to playhis/her role in the self-sovereign data management scheme as disclosedherein. These are merely illustrative and exemplary and do not limit therecord owner device and application by any means. Additional featuresand functionalities may be incorporated in the record owner applicationto provide additional capacities to handle more potential related tasks.

FIG. 9A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of the serviceprovider system, such as service provider 120-a, according to anembodiment of the present teaching. As described in several embodiments,service providers, such as service provider 120-a, interface withmultiple parties in the self-sovereign data management framework 100,including a record owner, a trusted entity, and optionally thetransaction engine. To achieve that, the service provider 120-a may beimplemented with certain functional modules which may include atransaction interface unit 905, a transaction flow controller 910, avalidation information solicitor 915, a validation informationdeterminer 920, a validation party determiner 930, a transaction servicemodule 950, a validation information approval unit 945, a validationresponse analyzer 940, and a validation response solicitor 935. In someembodiments, there is an optional audit processing unit 955.

FIG. 9B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the service providersystem 120-a, according to an embodiment of the present teaching. Theexemplary flow is devised consistent with the system diagram as depictedin FIG. 9A. As the system diagram and implementation shown in FIG. 9Aare merely illustrative, rather than limiting, the flow as provided inFIG. 9B is also illustrative in order to allow a service provider toplay a role in the self-sovereign data management framework 100.Additional features and flow steps may be incorporated to achieveadditional functionalities within the framework and such additionalsteps and flows are still within the scope of the present teaching.

As shown in FIG. 9B, at step 960, the transaction interface 905 receivesa request from a record owner for a desired transaction. The desiredtransaction may be communicated to the transaction flow controller 910to carry out steps needed to conduct the transaction. As describedherein, to proceed with the transaction, certain private data may needto be validated. To do so, the transaction flow controller 910 mayinvoke the validation information determiner 920 to check with storedtransaction/validation information requirements stored in 925 in orderto determine, at 962, certain private information that needs to bevalidated for the desired transaction. The determination may be madebased on, e.g., the transaction type, the state and regulations that areapplicable to the type of transaction, etc. For example, if a recordowner desires to buy a case of beer in the state of Maryland, accordingto the requirements related to drinking age of Maryland stored in thetransaction/validation information requirements in 925, it may bedetermined that the record owner has to satisfy the drinking age of 21.Such determined validation information may then be sent to thetransaction flow controller 910 to proceed to the next step.

To seek validation of the relevant private data, the transaction flowcontroller 910 may invoke the validation information solicitor 915,which then sends, at 964, a request to the record owner to initiate thevalidation process. As discussed above with respect to record owner inFIGS. 8A-8B, the record owner may then contact appropriate party (atrusted entity or the transaction engine 150) to seek the validation ofprivate data. In the illustrated embodiments, the record owner willreceive a cloaked identifier from the party, generate a cloakedidentifier pack, and sent to the service provider.

When the validation information solicitor 915 of the service providerreceives, at 966, the cloaked identifier pack, it may invoke thevalidation party determiner 930, which may extract, from the cloakedidentifier pack, information that specifies to whom (a trusted entity orthe transaction engine), determined at 968, the service provider is tosend a validation request. If the record owner specifies a specifictrusted entity to which the service provider will contact, thevalidation party determiner 930 invokes the validation responsesolicitor 935 to send, at 972, the cloaked identifier (e.g., extractedalso from the cloaked identifier pack) in a request that may indicate,e.g., the private data to be validated and/or the type of validationresponse sought (e.g., Boolean, answer, or data). After the request issent to the specified validation party, the validation responsesolicitor 935 receives, at 974, a validation response from the trustedentity as a response to the validation request.

If the record owner specifies that the service provider is to contactthe transaction engine 150 for requesting a validation response, thevalidation party determiner 930 invokes the validation responsesolicitor 935 to send, at 976, the cloaked identifier (e.g., extractedalso from the cloaked identifier pack) in a request that may indicate,e.g., the private data to be validated and/or the type of validationresponse sought (e.g., Boolean, answer, or data). After the request issent to the specified validation party, the validation responsesolicitor 935 receives, at 978, a validation response from thetransaction engine 150 as a response to the validation request

Upon receiving the validation response, the validation responsesolicitor 935 may invoke the validation response analyzer 940 to assesswhether the validation response satisfies the required prerequisitecondition for the desired transaction. To do so, the validation responseanalyzer 940 may invoke the validation information approval unit 945,which may first determine, at 984, the type of the validation received.When the validation response is a Boolean response corresponding to aBoolean response request, it is further determined whether thevalidation response satisfies what is required. Continuing with the sameexample of the required drinking age when purchasing beers, if therequested validation is whether the record owner is older than 21 yearsold, a validation response of “yes” (or confirmed) indicates that theprerequisite is met. Otherwise, the prerequisite for the transaction isnot met.

When the validation response confirms the prerequisite condition, thevalidation information approval unit 945 may invoke the transactionservice module 950 to proceed, at 992, with the desired transaction. Inthis case, the transaction service module 950 may coordinate with thetransaction interface unit 905 to carry out the transaction with therecord owner. If the Boolean validation response does not confirm theprerequisite condition of the transaction, the transaction servicemodule 950 may then reject, at 994, the transaction request and via thetransaction interface unit 905 inform the record owner of the decision.Whether the transaction is carried out or rejected, the transactionservice module 950 archives, at 996, the outcome of the session in atransaction archive 957. What is being archived may include, e.g., thetype of transaction, the record owner involved, the type of private datathat need to be validated based on which regulation under whichjurisdiction, the received validation response, the decision made by theservice provider as to how to proceed based on the validation response,and the subsequent actions taken to carry out the decision (proceed withthe transaction or reject the transaction). Such archives may alsoinclude other peripheral information such as the time of the session,the validation entity involved (a specific trusted entity or thetransaction engine), the criteria used at the time to reach thedecision, etc. Such archived data may later be retrieved for differentpurposes such as for auditing purposes to ensure, e.g., enforcement ofregulations.

As discussed herein, in some situations, the requested validationresponse may involve a non-Boolean response. In such situations, thevalidation response is analyzed by the validation information approvalunit 945, e.g., based on the requirements stored in 925. For example, ifthe validation response requested is an answer to a question, the nameof a city in which the record owner was born, the answer may then becompared with an expected answer, e.g., stored in 925. The outcome ofthe comparison may then be used to determine, at 988, whether theprerequisite to the transaction is satisfied. If the prerequisite issatisfied, the transaction service module 950 may proceed with thetransaction, at 992, with the record owner via, e.g., the transactioninterface unit 905. Otherwise, the transaction service module 950rejects, at 994, the transaction. Similarly, whether the transaction iscarried out or rejected, the transaction service module 950 archives, at996, the outcome of the session in a transaction archive 957.

In some embodiments, a request for validation response may specify morethan one type of response directed to, e.g., more than one piece ofprivate data. For example, in order for a record owner to receive acertain benefit under some government regulation, the record owner maybe required to show that he is both under 18 years old and the cityhe/she lives in. If that is the case, the cloaked identifier pack mayincorporate information specifying one or more parties for providing thevalidation and the service provider may formulate the request forvalidation response in order to solicit both a Boolean request, e.g., onwhether the record owner is under 18 years old, and a request for ananswer as to the name of the city the record owner lives in. With such arequest for multiple validation responses, especially different types ofresponses, the steps of 984-996 may be repeated (not shown) until allresponses satisfy the required prerequisite conditions or any one of thevalidation responses does not meet the requirements so that thetransaction is rejected.

The archived information in 957 related to any transaction sessions(whether concluded with transactions or not) may be retrieved accordingto needs for different purposes. One example of such use is forauditing. In the illustrated embodiment, the audit processing unit 955may handle such tasks. Upon receiving an audit request, the auditprocessing unit 955 may access the transaction archive 957 based on therequest and then return the retrieved transaction records related to theaudit request. Such retrieved audit data is then returned to the partywho makes the audit request. Examples of such a party requesting anaudit include law enforcement organization such as health servicedepartment to enforce the drinking age law, security relatedorganizations to enforce security related regulations, e.g., who canenter which parts of certain federal government buildings with whatlevel of security clearance certification. A more detailed operationalflow related to the auditing function of different parties operating inthe self-sovereign data management framework 100 are provided withreference to FIG. 14.

FIG. 10 depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of a trustedentity system, say 160-a, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. A trusted entity is one that has some secure/private data ofrecord owners in its possession and is in a position to providedifferent types of validation responses with respect to correspondingtypes of inquiries. In some embodiments, a trusted entity interfacesdirectly with a record owner and a service provider to validate, to theservice provider, certain data associated with the record owner tofacilitate a potential transaction desired by the record owner and theservice provider. In other embodiments, a trusted entity may insteadinterface with the transaction engine 150 when a record owner and,hence, a service provider carry out the prerequisite validation sessionby operating in a mode whereby all communication with the trusted entityis via the transaction engine 150.

A trusted entity may perform functions involved in different stages ofthe private data validation services. In some embodiments, there may bethree stages. A first stage may be for creating secure/private data forrecord owners, setting up access restrictions as well as permitted typesof inquiries for different piece of private data, and establishingrequired authentication information for record owners for securityreasons. A second stage may involve operations in response to avalidation request from and sending a cloaked identifier for the requestto the record owner or the transaction engine 150 (on behalf of therecord owner) that made the request. A third stage may involveoperations to process a request for validation response from andproviding the requested validation response to either a service provideror the transaction engine 150 (on behalf of the service provider).

In some embodiments, for the operations in the first stage, the trustedentity 160-a includes various components to accomplish relatedfunctions. For example, the trusted entity 160-a comprises an ownermanagement interface 1020, a secure personal information generator 1000,and an authentication unit 1045. At this stage, owner secure/privatedata may be generated and securely stored, access limitations (accessrestrictions and permitted inquiry types, etc.) may be set up forindividual information pieces, and authentication information may alsobe established. FIG. 11A is a flowchart of an exemplary process of thefirst stage processing of a trusted entity, according to someembodiments of the present teaching. At 1100, secure/private informationof record owners may be generated via either the secure personalinformation generator 1000 or via the owner management interface 1020.In some situations, the trusted entity may create personal private datasuch as a hospital creating the birth information for each new baby bornat the hospital. In other situations, personal private data may beprovided by the record owners via, e.g., the owner management interface1020. For example, a record owner may go to a bank to open a savingaccount with, e.g., personal information such as different types offinancial information.

When some private data is generated for a record owner, identificationinformation of the record owner is acquired at 1102. For example,identification information of each baby born at a hospital is usuallytaken at birth as personal identification of the baby. Suchidentification information may also be provided by a record owner viathe owner management interface 1020. For instance, a person goes to abank to set up an account may provide personal identificationinformation to the bank. Once such secure/private data is created,whether by the trusted entity or provided by record owners, may then bestored at the trusted entity. As illustrated, a secure database 1010(managed by the trusted entity) may be used to store secure/private dataof different record owners and a record owner database 1025 may be usedto store information related to the services, e.g., user identificationinformation, service terms, etc. that may include indices to the securedatabase 1010 to different pieces of secure/private data related to eachcorresponding record owner.

During this first operational stage, the trusted entity 160-a may alsointerface with a record owner to set up access limitations related tothe data such as access restrictions to the secure/private data as wellas the types of inquiries permitted. Such limitations may be specifiedby the record owner, e.g., via the owner management interface 1020, orby the trusted entity based on, e.g., a service terms for the serviceprovided to the record owner. For example, some service offered mayallow only Boolean inquiries and does not permit release of anysecure/private data. As discussed herein with respect to FIGS. 3E-3G.The access restrictions with respect to each record owner and each pieceof data are set up at 1104 and may be stored in access restrictionconfigurations 1005. Configurations for permitted types of inquirieswith respect to each piece of secure data stored for each record ownerare set up at 1106 and may be stored in storage 1015.

To enable future services, the trusted entity may also set up, at 1108of FIG. 11A, the authentication protocol for each record owner via theauthentication unit 1045. The authentication information may includenon-biometric and biometric information. The created authenticationinformation and authentication protocol may then be saved, at 1110, inrecord owner authentication information archive 1030, which may storeauthentication information and/or the authentication protocolinformation. For example, the stored authentication information mayinclude biometric information of record owners such as visualrepresentations for iris, fingerprints, faces, palms, etc. of the recordowners, or non-biometric information such as Q&As, security passcode,etc. The record owner authentication information archive 1030 may alsostore other relevant information such as information linkingauthentication information of a record owner to appropriate records inboth the record owner database 1025 (e.g., identification information)and the secure database (e.g., where the secure/private data is actuallystored).

The operations of the second stage at a trusted entity involve theinitial processing of a request for validating certain private of aspecific record owner. The request can be from the record owner or fromthe transaction engine 150 on behalf of the record owner. To facilitatethe operations of this stage, the trusted entity comprises aninformation service interface 1040, the authentication unit 1045, asecure data access controller 1050, a cloaked identifier generator 1055,a transaction package generator 1060, and a secure transaction interfaceunit 1065. FIG. 11B is a flowchart of an exemplary process forprocessing in the second stage of the trusted entity, according to someembodiments of the present teaching. In operation, when the informationservice interface 1040 receives, at 1112, a request (from either arecord owner or from the transaction engine on behalf of the recordowner) for validating some private data associated with the recordowner, the information service interface 1040 invokes the authenticationunit 1045 to authenticate, at 1114, the record owner based on theauthentication information and/or authentication protocol stored in therecord owner authentication information archive 1030. If theauthentication fails, determined at 1116, the trusted entity rejects, at1118, the request for validation.

If the authentication of the record owner is successful, the processproceeds to invoke the secure data access controller 1050 to initiatethe requested invalidation. To do so, the secure data access controller1050 invokes the cloaked identifier generator 1055 to generate, at 1120,a cloaked identifier associated with the request and to send, at 1122,to the party that sent the request (either the record owner or thetransaction engine on behalf of the record owner) the cloakedidentifier. The secure data access controller 1050 may also invoke thetransaction package (TP) generator 1060 to generate a transactionpackage to facilitate the processing at the third stage. As discussedherein, access limitations, including access restrictions and permittedinquiry types with respect to the private data at issue as illustratedin FIGS. 3E-3G, may be packaged into the TP corresponding to the cloakedidentifier (or the request) and stored so that during the operation ofthe third stage can be checked against to ensure appropriate access.

To generate a TP corresponding to the cloaked identifier for therequest, the transaction package generator 1060 retrieves, at 1124,access restrictions and/or permitted inquiry types associated with thepiece(s) of private information to be validated and then generates, at1126, a TP based on such relevant limitations. The secure transactioninterface unit 1065 is then invoked to send, at 1128, the generated TPto the secure transaction platform 170 and receive, at 1130, a TP ID asa unique identifier to identify the TP from the secure transactionplatform 170. The received TP ID is then archived, at 1132, in a TP/TPID archive 1067. In some embodiments, the cloaked identifier and the TPID may be stored as a pair to facilitate the operation of verifyingwhether the access conditions present satisfy the access limitationsrelated to the private data at issue (during the operation at the thirdstage as discussed below).

In some situations, the trusted entity 160-a interfaces with thetransaction engine 150 in handling requests for validation responsesfrom service providers associated with record owners that use servicesfrom the transaction engine. In this case, the transaction engine 150may interface with the trusted entity for the service providers (e.g.,because the record owners who desire transactions with the serviceproviders use services from the transaction engine). In this case, thetrusted entity may be made aware of the arrangement by such recordowners. In some embodiments, the trusted entity may even store someauthorization information from the record owners to permit thetransaction engine to act on behalf of the record owners. In this case,each time, when the trusted entity receives a request from thetransaction engine, it may first make sure that the request receivedfrom the transaction engine is authorized by the record owner associatedwith the request.

FIG. 11C is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the trusted entitywhen receiving a validation request from the transaction engine 150,according to some embodiments of the present teaching. When the trustedentity receives, at 1134, a validation request from the transactionengine 150, it may first check, at 1136, whether the transaction engineis authorized to represent the record owner associated with the request.If the transaction engine is authorized, determined at 1138, the trustedentity generates, at 1142, a cloaked identifier associated with therequest and sends, at 1144, the cloaked identifier to the transactionengine 150. To facilitate operations in the third stage, the trustedentity then retrieves, at 1146, access limitations associated with theprivate data of the record owner in questions and creates, at 1148, a TPbased on the retrieved limitations. The TP is then sent to the securetransaction platform and with a received TP ID, which is then storedwith the cloaked identifier in the TO/TP IS archive 1067 (as describedabove).

The operations of the third stage at a trusted entity involve processingof a request for a validation response with a previously issued cloakedidentifier directed to some inquiry of some type(s) specified in theresponse. In the third stage, the trusted entity interfaces with eithera service provider that desires to enter into a transaction with therecord owner or with the transaction engine 150 that sends the requeston behalf of the service provider. To facilitate the operations of thethird stage, the trusted entity 160-a comprises an informationvalidation interface 1080, the secure transaction interface unit 1065,an access limitation verification unit 1070. And a validationresponse/record generator 1075.

In operation, the third stage processing is initiated when theinformation validation interface 1080 receives a request for avalidation response with a cloaked identifier. FIG. 11D is a flowchartof an exemplary process of a trusted entity in response to the requestfor a validation response with a cloaked identifier, according to someembodiments of the present teaching. The received request may be from aservice provider or from the transaction engine 150. As discussedpreviously, the request may include various peripheral or meta data,e.g., information related to the access, the inquiry directed to certainprivate data of a record owner, the type of validation response sought.Examples of peripheral data related to the access may include, e.g.,date/time, a current number of requests for the same inquiry, thegeographical locale where the request is originated, . . . , etc.Examples of the inquiry directed to certain private data of a recordowner can be, e.g., inquiries about whether the record owner with acertain identification information is 21 years old or older. An exampleof the type of validation response is a Boolean response (yes or no).

Upon receiving the request at 1152, the information validation interface1080 invokes the access limitation verification unit 1070 to checkwhether the peripheral information related to the access (contained inthe request) satisfies the access limitations stored in the previouslystored TP corresponding to the cloaked identifier received. To do so,the access limitation verification unit 1070 identifies, at 1154, the TPID that corresponds to the received cloaked identifier (based oninformation stored in the TP/TP ID archive 1067. Based on the retrievedcorresponding TP ID, the access limitation verification unit 1070invokes the secure transaction interface unit 1065 to access the TP onthe secure transaction platform 170 and check, at 1156, whether theaccess limitations stored in the TP are satisfied. If the accesslimitations are violated, determined at 1158, the access limitationverification unit 1070 creates, at 1160, a rejection response and sendsit to the information validation interface 1080, which then sends to theparty who sends the request for a validation response (either a serviceprovider or the transaction engine).

If the request for a validation response meets the access limitations,the access limitation verification unit 1070 invokes the validationresponse/record generator 1075 to generate the requested validationresponse. To do so, the validation response/record generator 1075determines, at 1162, the requested validation response type and thenproceeds to generate, at 1164, the validation response based on theprivate data stored therein. For example, if the request seeks a Booleanresponse that validates whether the record owner is 21 years old, thevalidation response/record generator 1075 accesses the private age (orbirth date) data stored in the secure database 1010 and compares thatwith the age (21) indicated in the inquiry. Based on the comparisonresult, the validation response/record generator 1075 generates thevalidation response accordingly and sends, at 1166, the validationresponse to the party who sent the request.

To keep a record of the validation, the validation response/recordgenerator 1075 may also create a record for the validation request andsave such a record in a service record database 1087. Such a record mayinclude the information related to the request (parties involved,private date involved, date/time, geo information, inquiry made,response type requested, . . . , or the nature of the transaction ifknown), the actual private data as stored at the trusted entity, . . . ,the outcome of the validation, and/or the validation response actuallysent. Such service records may be retrieved in the future for, e.g.,auditing purposes.

FIG. 12 depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of thetransaction engine 150, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. As disclosed herein, the transaction engine 150 providerservices to record owners (and the service providers) related toinformation validation needed for transactions between record owners andservice providers. That is, it is a middle man between the transactionparties (record owner and service provider) and trusted entities.Similar to a trusted entity, the transaction engine may perform itsfunctions in different stages. In some embodiments, there may be threestages. A first stage may be for signing up record owners forinformation validation services, creating distribution information ofsecure/private data for record owners, setting up access restrictions aswell as permitted types of inquiries for different pieces of privatedata, and establishing required authentication information for recordowners for security reasons. A second stage may involve operations inresponse to a validation request from and sending a cloaked identifierfor the request to the record owner who made the request. A third stagemay involve operations to process a request for a validation responsefrom and providing the requested validation response to a serviceprovider.

In some embodiments, for the operations in the first stage, thetransaction engine 150 includes various components to accomplish relatedfunctions. For example, the transaction engine 150 comprises a servicesign-up interface 1200, a user information generation unit 1205, and anauthentication unit 1210. The service sign-up interface 1200 is tointerface with a record owner to sign up for services and for setting upprofiles needed to carry out the services such as the record owner'sprofile, distribution profiles of the record owner's private data,record owner's authentication related information, . . . , and/or recordowner's service related information such as account, etc.

FIG. 13A is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the first stageprocessing of the transaction engine 150, according to some embodimentsof the present teaching. At 1300, the service sign-up interface 1200receives a request from a record owner (or any third party) to sign upfor services for the record owner. To set up the services, the servicesign-up interface 1200 invokes the user information generation unit 1205to obtain, at 1305, information related to the record owner to establisha profile for the user, including the authentication information of therecord owner. The authentication unit 1210 is invoked to set up, at1310, the authentication information of the record owner. User profileinformation and authentication information are stored in a user database1215 and the authentication user information pairing configurationstorage 1217, respectively. Such stored information will be used in thefuture services to authenticate a record owner before proceeding todeliver the services.

To facilitate services related to private data validation, thetransaction engine 150 also sets up, at 1315, a roadmap for each user(record owner) that maps each of different pieces of private data of therecord owner to corresponding trusted entities that store the piece ofprivate data. This is discussed in detail with reference to FIGS. 3E-3G.Such information distribution information for each record owner isstored in the information distribution database 370 and will be used toidentify, for each service request, corresponding one or more trustedentities with which the transaction engine 150 needs to contact forvalidating certain private data of a record owner to deliver therequested service.

In some embodiments, the transaction engine 150 may also set up, at1320, with respect to each of the trusted entities (that holds privatedata of the record owner as identified in the information distributionprofile associated with the record owner), the transaction engine'sauthorized status as with the record owner in order to represent therecord owner in future data validation services. Upon receivinginformation needed to proceed with the services, the service sign-upinterface 1200 in the transaction engine 150 may then initialize, 1322,a service record for the record owner in a service record database 1237.

The second stage of operations of the transaction engine 150 involvesthe handling steps carried out in response to a service request from arecord owner. In some embodiments, to carry out the operations in thesecond stage, the transaction engine 150 includes an information serviceinterface 1220, the authentication unit 1210, a secure data accessservice controller 1220, a trusted entity determiner 1225, a trustedentity communication controller 1235, and a trusted entity interface1230. During the operation of the second stage, the transaction engine150 is to bridge between a record owner and a trusted entity, acting onbehalf of the record owner to send a request to one or more appropriateidentified trusted entities for validating certain private data of therecord owner to meet a requirement associated with a transaction desiredby the record owner.

FIG. 13B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the transactionengine in the second stage of operation, according to an embodiment ofthe present teaching. When the information service interface 1220receives, at 1325, a service request from a record owner, it invokes theauthentication unit 1210 to first authenticate the record owner. Asdiscussed herein, in some embodiments, the record owner application 805running on a record owner device may also authenticate the personoperating the record owner device to ensure that the person is whohe/she claims to be (the record owner). From the perspective of thetransaction engine 150, the authentication may also be performed so thatthe transaction engine 150 can make sure that it will deliver servicesonly to record owners who have signed up with data validation services.To do so, the authentication unit 1210 identifies, at 1330, the recordowner's authentication information previously stored in the storage 1217and performs, 1335, the authentication with respect to the record owner.The authentication may be based on non-biometric or biometricinformation, as discussed herein.

If the authentication fails, the authentication unit 1210 may inform theinformation service interface 1220 to reject, at 1345, the servicerequest. If the authentication is successful, the secure data accessservice controller 1220 is invoked, which may first invoke the trustedentity determiner 1225 to identify, at 1350, one or more trustedentities associated with the private data to be validated based on theinformation distribution profile of the record owner (stored in storage370). With such identified trusted entities, the trusted entitydeterminer 1225 invokes the trusted entity communication controller1235, which may then invoke the trusted entity interface to send, at1355, a request to the identified trusted entity (or entities) forvalidating the specified private data. When the trusted entity interface1230 receives, at 1360, a cloaked identifier from the trusted entity, itforwards the cloaked identifier to the information service interface1220 which then sends, at 1365, the cloaked identifier to the recordowner. Upon being informed that the cloaked identifier has been sent,the trusted entity communication controller 1235 updates, at 1370, theservice record of the record owner stored in the service record database1237.

In some embodiments, once the cloaked identifier is sent to the recordowner, the record owner will then generate a cloaked identifier packincorporating additional information and send the cloaked identifierpack to the service provider so that the service provider may utilizethe cloaked identifier to seek a validation response from the trustedentity. In some implementations, the service provider may contact thetrusted entity identified in the cloaked identifier for the validationresponse. In some implementations, the service provider may seek avalidation response via the transaction engine 150. In theseembodiments, the remaining operation to complete the validation iscompleted by the transaction engine and such operational steps arecarried out in the third stage at the transaction engine.

The operations of the third stage may be accomplished via a serviceprovider interface unit 1240, the trusted entity determiner 1225, thetrusted entity communication controller 1235, the trusted entityinterface unit 1230, and a service record archiver 1245. As discussedherein, at this stage, upon receiving a cloaked identifier from aservice provider, the transaction engine 150 is to construct a requestsoliciting a validation response from a relevant trusted entity. Therequest for a validation response may be created based on the cloakedidentifier and incorporated with additional information related to theaccess (e.g., date/time, location, type of response requested, etc.).Such a created request for a validation response is then sent to therelevant trusted entity until the requested validation response isreceived from the trusted entity. The received validation response isthen forwarded to the service provider. FIG. 13C is a flowchart of anexemplary process of the operational steps during the third stage of thetransaction engine 150, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching.

As illustrated, when the service provider interface 1240 receives, at1375, the cloaked identifier from a service provider, the trusted entitycommunication controller 1235 invokes the trusted entity determiner 1225to identify, at 1380, the trusted entity (or entities) involved and theninvokes the trusted entity interface 1230 to send, at 1385, a requestfor a validation response to the identified trusted entity. When thetrusted entity interface 1230 receives, at 1390, the requestedvalidation response from the trusted entity, it forwards, at 1395, thereceived validation response to the service provider via the serviceprovider interface unit 1240.

Although not shown, in some embodiments, upon receiving a cloakedidentifier from a service provider, the service provider interface unitmay access directly (instead of via the trusted entity determiner 1225)the service record associated with the received cloaked identifier(stored in storage 1237) to identify the trusted entity involved andthen invoke the trusted entity interface 1230 to contact the trustedentity for a validation response. Upon receiving the requestedvalidation response, the trusted entity interface 1230 may also invokethe service record archiver 1245 to update, at 1397, the service recordassociated with the record owner. Such continually updated servicerecords may include details of each service request such as partiesinvolved, transactions related, dates/times of the initial request fromthe record owners, dates/times of the request from the serviceproviders, private data at issue, types of inquiry involved, types ofvalidation responses solicited, dates/times of receiving the validationresponses, and/or the copies of the validation responses. Such servicerecords may be used in the future for different purposes, e.g.,responding to auditing requests.

As shown in FIGS. 9A, 10, and 12 (for a service provider, a trustedentity, and the transaction engine, respectively), each of these partiesmay be audited on, e.g., compliance with laws/regulations in conductingtransactions. As discussed herein, responses to such audit requests maybe handled based on records established and continually updated duringthe operations of each party. For example, the exemplary serviceprovider 120-a as depicted in FIG. 9A includes an audit processing unit955 that relies on data stored in the transaction archive 957 togenerate responses to audit requests. Similarly, the exemplary trustedentity 160-a as depicted in FIG. 10 includes an audit processing unit1090 that relies on service records stored in 1087 to handle auditrequests. The transaction engine 150 as depicted in FIG. 12 includesalso an audit processing unit 1250, that relies on the service recordsstored in 1237 to handle audit requests. In some embodiments, althoughthey all rely on records established from each party's own perspective,the operational flow for these audit processing units may be similar.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart of an exemplary process of a party in respondingto an auditing request, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. The party can be a service provider, a trusted entity, or thetransaction engine 150. In operation, when an audit request is receivedat 1410, the audit processing unit (955, 1090, or 1250) analyzes therequest to determine whether the request is from an authorized auditor.In some implementations, each party (a service provider, a trustedentity, or the transaction engine) may have a list of auditors who areauthorized to send audit requests and such a list may be maintained byeach of the parties (not shown). If the received audit request is from asender who is not an authorized auditor, determined at 1430, the auditprocessing unit (955, 1090, or 1250) may reject, at 1440, the auditrequest.

If the audit request is from an authorized auditor, the audit processingunit (955, 1090, or 1250) may then determine, at 1450, the content ofthe audit request, including, e.g., the target(s) involved, . . . , thesubject matter to be audited, time period(s) involved, etc. For example,an audit request may be directed to a general audit (without specificindividual target) on compliance with drinking age law (subject matterto be audited) during a specific period of time. Upon an understandingof the audit request, the audit processing unit may identify, at 1460,all relevant information subject to the audit and then generate, at1470, an audit report based on such identified relevant information.Such generated audit report is then provided, at 1480, to the auditor.

FIG. 15 depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of the securetransaction platform 170, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. As discussed previously, the secure transaction platform 170may be provided for storing secure transaction packages (STPs)corresponding to cloaked identifiers and each STP may include accesslimitations to be imposed on the access of private information to bevalidated for the underlying transaction. Each STP may store informationrelated to the transaction, the parties involved, the nature of thetransaction and its identification information, as well as limitationsimposed on data access. As discussed herein, the secure transactionplatform 170 may possess various characteristics that can ensuresecurity, immutable data, uniqueness in identifying STPs, etc. Thesecure transaction platform 170 enables secure storage of STPs,retrieval of such STPs when needed, and in some embodiment the servicesof evaluation of access conditions against STPs to return an evaluationresult.

In the exemplary embodiment depicted in FIG. 15, to securely store STPs(e.g., 170-a, 170-b, . . . , 170-c) on the platform, the securetransaction platform 170 uses a transaction package (TP) receiver 1500,a TP ID generator 1510, a secure transaction package (STP) generator1520, and a STP index generator 1540. FIG. 16A is a flowchart of anexemplary process of the secure transaction platform 170 storing an STP,according to an embodiment of the present teaching. The process isinitiated when the TP receiver 1500 receives, at 1600, a transactionpackage (TP) associated with a data validation session (having anassociated cloaked identifier). As discussed previously, the TP mayinclude various information related to the validation session includinglimitations to be imposed on access the private data to be validated.The purpose of storing a TP on the secure transaction platform 170 is tofacilitate enforcement of access limitations so that the associatedcloaked identifier is to be used as a limited use token.

To store the received TP on the secure transaction platform 170, the TPID generator 1510 generates, at 1610, a unique identifier TP ID for theTP based on, e.g., the unique ID generation models 1530. Based on theunique TP ID for the received TP, the STP generator 1520 generates, at1620, a STP for the received TP and the unique TP ID. The generated STPis then stored, at 1630, on the secure transaction platform 170. Tofacilitate future access, the STP index generator 1540 generates, at1640, an index corresponding to the TP ID and archives, at 1650, theindex in a storage 1550 for STP indices. As a response to the requestfrom the trusted entity, the TP ID is sent, at 1660, back to the trustedentity.

To facilitate future access of stored STPs for enforcing compliance ofset access limitations stored in STPs, the secure transaction platform170 further includes additional components, including a requestprocessor 1560, an inquiry condition extractor 1570, and an STP accessunit 1580. In some embodiments, a trusted entity may retrieve apreviously stored STP from the secure transaction platform 170 and thencompare the access limitations with the peripheral informationassociated with the access (e.g., received from a service provider,either directly or via the transaction engine 150) to determine whetherthe access limitations associated with a cloaked identifier are met. Insome embodiments, because each of the STPs may be stored as a smartcontract so that such STPs may be equipped with the ability to performcertain computations such as assessing whether there is any violation ofthe stored access limitations given some access parameters associatedwith an inquiry. In this case, an assessment of compliance with respectto access limitations stored in an STP may be provided directly by theSTP queried. This may correspond to a self-evaluation mode of operation.

FIG. 16B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of accessing an STP forevaluating access limitation compliance, according to an embodiment ofthe present teaching. When the request processor 1560 receives, at 1605,a TP ID from a trusted entity, the inquiry condition extractor 1570 isinvoked to extract, at 1615, parameters related to the access associatedwith the TP ID. For example, such access parameters may includedate/time, originating geographical location, a number that may indicatethe count of access in the past using the same TP ID, . . . , etc. Suchparameters may be used to assess whether any of the access limitationsstored in the STP corresponding to the TP ID is violated.

To access the corresponding STP, the STP access unit 1580 identifies, at1625, an index for the STP from the stored STP indices in 1550 based onthe TP ID. To evaluate compliance, a mode of operation is determined at1635. That is, it is determined whether the assessment is to be carriedout in a self-evaluation mode, i.e., the evaluation is done by the STP(rather than by the trusted entity). If it is not to be assessed in theself-evaluation mode, the STP access unit 1580 invokes, at 1645, the STPbased on the index so that the activated STP corresponding to the indexmay then send, at 1655, relevant STP content (e.g., the accesslimitations) to the trusted entity for checking the compliance.

If the operation mode is self-evaluation mode, the STP access unit 1580sends, at 1665, the extracted access parameters provided from thetrusted entity to the indexed STP. When the STP receives the accessparameters, it evaluates, at 1675, them against the stored accesslimitations and sends, at 1685, an evaluation response to the trustedentity. In some embodiments, the evaluation response may include Booleanassessment (e.g., “yes” for compliance, “no” for noncompliance). In someembodiments, the evaluation response may provide additional information,e.g., details as to which access parameter(s) is not compliant with thestored access limitations.

As disclosed herein, in some embodiments, an STP is stored as a smartcontract which can be continually referred to, accessed, and in somesituations, some data stored therein may be dynamically updated toreflect changes related to the contractual terms. In the context of theself-sovereign data management framework as disclosed herein, an STP maystore access limitations associated with some validation session(s) inconnection with a particular type of transaction. One example is thefollowing. A record owner may take a vacation in California for twoweeks and seek to purchase beers from different stores in California.When the record owner visits the first store to buy beer, he/she mayinitiate a process of allowing the owner of the first store to seekvalidation from the DMV in his/her hometown, say DMV of the state ofVirginia. When the record owner initiates the validation process, therecord owner receives a cloaked identifier from the DMV of Virginia,which creates an STP stored on the secure transaction platform 170 withaccess limitations set as, e.g., validation is about age of the recordowner; the validation has to be within two weeks from a starting date;the validation request is from a service provider located in California(geographical limitation); and a maximum of 5 validations is permitted.After the first purchase with validated age, the record owner maysubsequently visit other stores in California to purchase more beer. Inthis case, the record owner can activate the subsequent validationsusing the same cloaked identifier received previously from the VirginiaDMV and send the cloaked identifier to other stores to seek validation.So long as the subsequent accesses still comply with the set accesslimitations stored in the STP, the record owner does not have tore-create a cloaked identifier and the STP serves as an effectivemechanism to enforce compliance, given that the STP updates dynamicallythe changing situation associated with the subsequent accesses. Forexample, if the access limitations require a maximum 5 validations, theSTP needs to deduct after each access.

Referring back to FIG. 15, the secure transaction platform 170 may alsoinclude an audit request handler 1590 that may be configured to handleaudit requests. Such an audit request sent to the secure transactionplatform 170 may inquire about data related to access to STPs that arerelated to a specific party (e.g., any access records related to aspecific trusted entity, a specific service provider, a specific recordowner or any combination thereof), a specific type of relatedtransactions, a specific type of inquiry (e.g., drinking age related), .. . , or any combination thereof (e.g., any transactions involving aspecific service provider on enforcement of drinking age regulation). Inthe illustrated embodiments, as each STP is a self-enclosed securelyoperated unit, the secure transaction platform 170 may handle an auditrequest by broadcasting the audit request and then collecting auditresponses from STPs that find themselves to be relevant to the auditrequest.

FIG. 16C is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the securetransaction platform 170 acting in response to an audit request,according to an embodiment of the present teaching. When the auditrequest handler 1590 receives, at 1607, an audit request, it checks, at1617, the authority of the requester who sent the audit request. If therequester is not authorized, determined at 1627, the audit requesthandler 1590 rejects, at 1637, the audit request. If the requester isauthorized, the audit request handler 1590 proceeds to analyze the auditrequest to determine, at 1647, the specific content of the request,i.e., what is the subject matter to be audited, what is the target(s) ofthe audit, etc. Based on the determined content/subject matter/targetsassociated with the audit request, the audit request handler 1590generates, at 1657, an audit inquiry incorporating the content/subjectmatter/target extracted from the audit request and sends, at 1667, toall STPs currently stored on the platform.

In some embodiments, when STPs receive the broadcast audit inquiry, eachmay then check to see if implicated. If so, the implicated STPs may thenretrieve all access histories relevant to the audit inquiry and send tothe audit request handler 1590. When the audit request handler 1590receives all the audit responses from the implicated STPs, the auditrequest handler 1590 generates, at 1677, an audit report based on thereceived audit responses from the implicated STPs. Such generated auditreport is then sent, at 1687, to the requester.

FIG. 17A depicts an exemplary construct of a secure transaction packageSTP 170-a, according to an embodiment of the present teaching. In thisillustrated embodiment, the STP comprises a request handler 1710, anaccess parameter normalizer 1720, an access compliance evaluator 1730,and an audit inquiry processor 1750. In addition to these processingcomponents, the STP 170-a also includes data storage and the processingcomponents therein are capable of processing and updating the data savedin the storage in accordance with the situations. For example, instorage 1725, the STP 170-a stores TP meta information which may containvarious types of information including access limitations associatedwith the underlying validation session and such meta data may becontinually updated based on the situation.

FIG. 17B illustrates exemplary types of meta information stored in STP170-a, according to an embodiment of the present teaching. In thisexemplary illustration, the meta information stored therein includes TPID (used for identification), the corresponding cloaked identifier, anidentifier for the trusted entity that has constructed the STP 170-a, anidentifier of the record owner who requested the validation, the type oftransaction involved, access restrictions, . . . , and inquiry relatedparameters. As discussed herein, the access restrictions may includerestrictions on access time period, usage count, granularity, . . . ,etc. There may also be restrictions on types of inquiry that can be madeand the types of validation responses permitted, as shown in FIG. 17B.Some of the stored meta information may be subject to change over time.For example, restrictions on access period, when represented as aremaining period (e.g., one more hour, two more days, etc.), may need tobe updated based on a countdown operation. In addition, if a maximum 5counts of access is specified, each time there is an access, theremaining maximum will need to be reduced by one. This is accomplishedby the processing components in the STP 170-a.

The STP 170-a may also be configured to keep an alive access historyduring the life span of the STP 170-a. As seen in FIG. 17A, STP 170-amay also include an access history archive 1740 which archives allaccesses, surrounding information associated with each access, as wellas the outcome of each access. The archive 1740 may be updated wheneverthere is an access. FIG. 17C illustrates exemplary types of informationincluded in an access record, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. In this illustration, the access history includes informationsuch as the identity of the trusted entity that creates the STP, theidentification of a record owner for whom the STP is made, the nature ofthe transaction involved, and records associated with each access made,including date/time of the access, an originating party (a serviceprovider), the geolocation of the originating party, . . . , and theinquiry/response of the access. The history may also include any othertypes of data such as a summary of all violations of the accesslimitations, . . . , and other irregularities.

FIG. 17D is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the STP 170-a inresponse to an access request, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. When the request handler 1710 receives, at 1752, an accessrequest, the request handler 1710 determines, at 1754, whether therequest is asking for certain content stored therein or for anevaluation response. As discussed herein, in some embodiments, a trustedentity may request to access the access limitations stored in the STP170-a and then proceed to check whether the access parameters associatedwith the request for a validation response (originated from a serviceprovider) satisfy the access limitations stored in STP 170-a. In otherembodiments, the trusted entity may request the STP 170-a to providedirectly an evaluation response derived by comparing the inquiryparameters associated with the access with the stored accesslimitations. In this (or either) situation, the trusted entity may sendthe request to STP 170-a with information surrounding the request for avalidation response originated from a service provider (even though thetrusted entity may receive a request from the transaction engine, therequest is originated from a service provider). Information surroundingthe request for a validation response may include, e.g., date/time theservice provider sent the request, the type of inquiry sought (e.g., ageolder than 21), . . . , and the type of response asked for (e.g.,Boolean response). Such information is to be used to compare with theaccess limitations stored in STP 170-a.

If the request is merely to receive relevant content (e.g., accesslimitations), decided at 1756, the request handler 1710 retrieves, at1758, relevant meta information stored therein and sends, at 1760, theretrieved meta information to the trusted entity. If the request is foran evaluation response based on the access limitations stored in the STP170-a, the request handler 1710 extracts, at 1762, access parametersfrom the request and invokes the access parameter normalizer 1720 tonormalize, at 1764, the access parameters to obtain normalized accessparameters. Such normalization may be needed for certain parameters,e.g., access time or even date due to time differences between differentjurisdictions. When the access parameter normalizer 1720 completes thenormalization, it may then activate the access compliance evaluator1730, which may then take the normalized access parameters as input andproceed to evaluate, at 1766, the normalized access parameters againstthe access limitations stored in the meta information archive 1725 togenerate an evaluation response. The access compliance evaluator 1730then sends, at 1768, the evaluation response to the trusted entity andupdates, at 1770, the access history archive 1740 based on theinformation and outcome of the access.

As discussed herein with reference to FIGS. 15 and 16C, the securetransaction platform 170 may respond to an audit request, collectrelevant information from all STPs that are implicated (determined basedon whether satisfy auditing conditions), and then generate an auditreport based on audit responses from all implicated STPs. In FIG. 17A,the exemplary STP 170-a includes an audit inquiry processor 1750 that isconfigured to handle an audit inquiry from the audit request handler1590 of the secure transaction platform 170. FIG. 17E is a flowchart ofan exemplary process of the audit inquiry processor 1750, according toan embodiment of the present teaching. Upon receiving an audit inquiryat 1772, the audit inquiry processor 1750 determines, at 1774, thecontent/subject matter/target to be addressed by the audit inquiry.Based on such determined content/subject matter/target, if the STP 170-adecides, at 1776, that the STP 170-a is not implicated, the auditinquiry processor 1750 informs, at 1778, the audit request handler 1590.In some embodiments, the audit inquiry processor 1750 may elect not torespond in the event that the STP 170-a is not implicated.

If the audit inquiry processor 1750 analyzed that there is something inthe audit inquiry that is relevant to STP 170 a, the audit inquiryprocessor 1750 retrieves, at 1780, information stored in STP 170-a thatis relevant to the inquiry. For instance, if the audit inquiry isrequesting for all records related to transactions of alcohol salesinvolving a specific chain grocery store between 1996-2006. If STP 170-ais related to beer transactions involving the specific chain grocerystore in 1998-2000, STP 170-a is implicated. In this case, the auditinquiry processor 1750 retrieves all data stored in STP 170-a, eitherfrom the meta information storage 1725 or from the access historyarchive 1740, that satisfy any of the conditions specified in the auditinquiry. Based on such retrieved relevant information, the audit inquiryprocessor 1750 generates, at 1782, an audit response and sends, at 1784,the audit response to the audit request handler 1590.

In some embodiments, the broadcast audit inquiry is to be sent to allSTPs, including both STPs that are still active and STPs that havepreviously expired in the sense that as the access limitations storedtherein have effectively made the STPs ineffective. For example, if anSTP stores the information that the remaining number of access is zero.Although rendered ineffective, such STPs may be configured to continueto be capable of certain tasks such as responding to an audit inquiry.In this way, it can facilitate useful functions such as auditing thepast records.

As disclosed herein, the self-sovereign data management framework 100enables a scheme in which private data to be validated may not need tobe sent over the network, thus improving the security of such privatedata. Via framework 100, a record owner may also elect to specify theappropriate level of granularity of data to be validated on a needbasis. For example, if a record owner needs only to prove his age to aservice provider, he/she can designate that only age validation isneeded. This is in contrast with the traditional method of proofing ageby presenting a driver license (or passport) or a copy thereof, whichdiscloses not only birth date but also other information such as streetaddress, height, eye color, that are not needed for the transaction butnevertheless disclosed. As disclosed herein, to securely operate inframework 100, a person who requests a validation of certain privateinformation in order to complete a transaction with a service providermay be required to authenticate his/herself to be the person claimed tobe before the validation process can be initiated. In FIGS. 8A (forrecord owner), 10 (for a trusted entity), and 12 (for the transactionengine), components for these parties are provided for establishingauthentication information and protocol for a record owner andsubsequently carrying out the authentication based on such establishedauthentication information and protocol. Below, various aspects andimplementation related to authentication are disclosed in detail.

FIG. 18A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of theauthentication set-up unit 815 as depicted in FIG. 8A, according to anembodiment of the present teaching. A record owner may establishauthentication information with either one or more trusted entities orthe transaction engine 150 when the record owner uses the transactionengine 150 to manage his/her data. FIG. 19A illustrates exemplary typesof authentication information that may be used for authenticating arecord owner, according to an embodiment of the present teaching. Asshown, authentication information may be biometric or non-biometric.Non-biometric authentication information may be a traditional passwordor some sort of code, some security questions and answers (Q/As), . . ., etc. Examples of biometric authentication information includesfingerprint, palm, vein, iris, . . . , face. Non-biometric and biometricinformation may be combined to achieve authentication.

To set up authentication information to be used, the authenticationset-up unit 815 may comprise an authentication set-up controller 1810, atrusted entity communication unit 1820, a transaction enginecommunication unit 1830, a non-biometric authentication setup unit 1840,and a biometric authentication setup unit 1850. The trusted entitycommunication unit 1820 interfaces with any trusted entity to facilitatecommunication between the record owner and the trusted entity to set upauthentication information. Similarly, the transaction enginecommunication unit 1830 interfaces with the transaction engine 150 tofacilitate communication between the record owner and the transactionengine 150 for the set up. The authentication set-up controller 1810interfaces with the record owner to determine the party (a trustedentity or the transaction engine) with which the record owner is toproceed with the set up and then accordingly controls whichcommunication unit to invoke to accomplish that. Depending on the typeof authentication information to be set up, both trusted entitycommunication unit 1810 and the transaction engine communication unit1830 may invoke either of the non-biometric authentication setup unit1840 or the biometric authentication setup unit 1850 to interface withthe record owner to gather desired authentication information.

FIG. 18B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the authenticationset-up unit 815, according to an embodiment of the present teaching. Inoperation, the authentication set-up controller 1810, once activated,receives, at 1855, indication from the record owner as to the party therecord owner is to set up the authentication information. If the partyis a trusted entity, determined at 1860, the authentication set-upcontroller 1810 invokes the trusted entity communication unit 1820,which, upon contacting the trusted entity, receives, at 1870, a requestfrom the trusted entity for certain authentication information. If theparty with which the record owner is to set up the authenticationinformation if the transaction engine 150, determined at 1860, theauthentication set-up controller 1810 invokes the transaction enginecommunication unit 1830, which, upon contacting the transaction engine150, receives, at 1865, a request from the trusted entity for certainauthentication information. The request received from the trusted entityor the transaction engine may be generated respectively based oncommunication between the record owner and the trusted entity on whattype(s) of authentication information is to be set up (now shown).

With the received request, it is determined, at 1875, whether therequested authentication information is biometric or non-biometric. Ifwhat is requested is non-biometric, the non-biometric authenticationsetup unit 1840 may be invoked to interface with the record owner toacquire, at 1880, non-biometric authentication information. If what isrequested is biometric information, the biometric authentication setupunit 1850 may be invoked to acquire, at 1885, biometric information ofthe record owner.

During each set up session, more than one type of authenticationinformation may be acquired, including biometric and non-biometric oreven type (bio or non-biometric information) may also include multiplepieces of authentication information. For example, for biometricinformation, the authentication information may include both fingerprintas well as iris. For non-biometric information, the authenticationinformation may include both password and Q&As. At 1890, theauthentication information is checked to see if there are additionalrequests, and the session may loop back to 1875 to check if the nextpiece of authentication information requested (by either the trustedentity communication unit 1820 or the transaction engine communicationunit 1830) is biometric or non-biometric.

The process continues until, determined at 1890, all authenticationinformation requested by the current party (a trusted entity or thetransaction engine) has been acquired. When that happens, the acquiredauthentication information is sent to the party at 1895. The process maythen determine, at 1897, whether additional set up is needed for adifferent party (e.g., a different trusted entity), if so, the processloops back to step 1855. Otherwise, the set up session ends at 1898.

With authentication information set up with respect to each relevantparty, the record owner may be required to authenticate him/herself ineach validation session with the party (or parties) who will beproviding the validation service to the record owner. In operation,besides authenticating a record owner based on previously acquired orsetup authentication information, additional security measures may bedeployed. This includes detecting the liveness of a “person” who submitscertain biometric “authentication information” to prevent situations inwhich someone who pretends to be a record owner submits a photo of eyesof the record owner for iris recognition. The self-sovereign datamanagement framework 100 as disclosed herein may incorporatefunctionalities for liveness detection in order to strengthen thesecurity of the operation. This is shown in FIG. 19A, wherein allauthentication information may be subject to liveness detection.

FIG. 19B illustrates exemplary modalities for liveness detection,according to some embodiments of the present teaching. This includesliveness detection via both non-biometric and biometric means. Asillustrated, for non-biometric authentication information, such as apassword, the liveness of the person who provides the password may bechallenged to say or do something (e.g., type something at a prompt) orasked some questions that likely only the record owner would know thecorrect answers (Q&As). As to the biometric information, which includes,e.g., iris, face, fingerprint, palm, . . . , vein, various means may bedeployed to detect the liveness of the presented biometric information.For example, to detect liveness of a face, depth based, thermal based,or challenge based approaches may be used. In some applications, thelight reflection patterns of human flesh may also be used (not shown).For detecting liveness of a fingerprint, thermal based approaches may beused and a motion based approach may also be deployed by detecting theblood flow in the vein inside of the fingerprint. Similarly, theliveness of a palm may also be detected in a similar fashion.

Iris is another form of biometric information. To detect the liveness ofan iris, different approaches are disclosed herein according todifferent embodiments of the present teaching. As shown in FIG. 19B, theliveness of an iris may be detected based on light strobing, eyetracking, obfuscation, . . . , challenges, or any combination thereof.Details on such iris liveness detection methods are provided below withreference to FIGS. 20A-27B.

FIG. 20A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of anauthentication unit, according to an embodiment of the present teaching.The authentication unit in FIG. 20A may correspond to the authenticationunit 835 in FIG. 8A (for a record owner when authentication occurs atthe record owner's device), the authentication unit 1045 in FIG. 10 (fora trusted entity), or the authentication unit 1210 in FIG. 12 (for thetransaction engine 150). In some embodiments, the record owner (RO)authentication unit 835 in FIG. 8A may carry out the authentication atthe record owner's device so that it may not be needed for a trustedentity or the transaction engine 150 to perform authentication of arecord owner remotely across the network. In some embodiments, the ROauthentication unit 835 in the record owner application 805 may providemerely a mechanism for a record owner to interface with anauthenticating party to response to requests. In this case, the ROauthentication unit 835 may interface with the person to beauthenticated (who could be the record owner) to acquire liveauthentication information (whether non-biometric or biometric) and thensend such acquired authentication information to the authenticatingparty (a trusted entity or the transaction engine). The authenticationunit as depicted in FIG. 20A is configured to perform authentication,whether it is by the record owner application 805, a trusted entity, orthe transaction engine 150.

The authentication unit in FIG. 20A comprises processing components indifferent stages of the authentication. The first stage is to set upauthentication information to be used for future authentication. Thesecond stage is to perform liveness detection of a person who claims tobe a record owner. The third stage is entered into after the livenessdetection of the person is successful to authenticate the person basedon previously stored authentication information. To facilitate theoperations of the first stage, the authentication unit in FIG. 20Aincludes a record owner setup unit 2000, a non-biometric informationconfiguration unit 2005, and a biometric information configuration unit2010. FIG. 20B is a flowchart of an exemplary process for setting upauthentication information of a record owner, according to an embodimentof the present teaching.

In operation, when the record owner setup unit 2000 receives, at 2050, arequest for setting up authentication information for a record owner, itdetermines, at 2052 based on authentication requirements stored instorage 2002, the type of authentication information required, which maybe non-biometric, biometric, or a combination of both. The set upoperation is to establish the baseline authentication information thathas to be proved before any access to the protected private data. Asdiscussed herein, the setup for authentication information may beapplied to the full set of private data of the record owner stored atthe trusted entity or to a partial set of private data. In the lattersituation, baseline authentication information may be set for each pieceof the record owner's private data. To acquire non-biometricauthentication information, the record owner setup unit 2000 invokes thenon-biometric information configuration unit 2005 to set up, at 2053,non-biometric authentication information in 2015 with the record owner,and the biometric information configuration unit 2010 to set up, at2055, biometric baseline authentication information in 2025 with therecord owner. When different pieces of private information are set upwith different associated baseline authentication information, they haveto be individually unlocked using corresponding authenticationinformation. In some embodiments, the non-biometric and/or biometricinformation configuration units 2005 and 2010 may also set up with therecord owner any information, whether biometric or non-biometric, and aprotocol thereof for detecting liveness, e.g., the iris information whenlight strobing is applied, . . . , obfuscation scheme to be applied,etc. Such information for liveness detection may be stored together withthe respective authentication information.

In operations of the second and the third stages (to detect liveness ofa person and to authenticate the person), the authentication unit inFIG. 20A performs authentication of the record owner via eithernon-biometric or biometric means. As disclosed herein, each piece ofsecure/private data may be required to be unlocked based on associatedpreviously set authentication requirements, i.e., the authenticationinformation associated therewith needs to be proved before the piece ofdata can be accessed. Which piece of secure/private data is associatedwith which authentication requirements is configured and stored ineither the non-biometric authentication information 2015 or thebiometric authentication information 2025 and such information may beretrieved when there is an access request with an indication of aspecific piece of private data.

The authentication unit as depicted in FIG. 20A includes anauthentication request processor 2030, an authentication controller2035, and a liveness detection controller 2020 for liveness detectionand a non-biometric authentication unit 2040 as well as a biometricauthentication unit 2045 for authentication. Liveness detection isprovided to prevent replay attacks. Solutions have been developed toprevent replay attacks on non-biometric information. As to biometricinformation, replay attacks have been on the rise and effective meansare needed to prevent or counteract to that. For example, if an iris isused as biometric information to authenticate, various replay attackshave been used to circumvent the security measures. For instance, livevideo or images of a person's face may be captured and iris of theperson's eye may be used to replay in the future or generate brute forceiris patterns that closely match the real person's iris and thenplayback the generated iris image. To prevent such attacks, livenessdetection is used to ensure that the presented biometric information isfrom a person “live.”

FIG. 20C is a flowchart of an exemplary process for authenticating aperson who claims to be a record owner, according to an embodiment ofthe present teaching. It includes both liveness detection and theauthentication itself. Although it is shown in FIG. 20C that livenessdetection proceeds the authentication (e.g., authentication is carriedout after the lives detection is successful), the order may be reversedin accordance with the needs of applications.

In operation, an authentication session is initiated when theauthentication request processor 2030 receives, at 2060, a request forauthenticating a record owner. The authentication request processor 2030may invoke the authentication controller 2035, which may then proceed tocarry out the steps for the authentication. For example, theauthentication controller 2035 may invoke the liveness detectioncontroller 2020 with information that facilitates the livenessdetection. For example, the claimed identity of the record owner may beprovided to the liveness detection controller 2020 so that the livenessdetection controller 2020 may use that information to access, at 2062 inFIG. 20C, the set liveness detection requirements associated with therecord owner and determine, at 2064, whether the liveness is to bedetected using biometric or non-biometric or both types of information.

If the liveness is to be detected using non-biometric informationaccording to the previously set requirement, the liveness controller2020 interfaces with the person who claims to be the record owner togather dynamic information from the person and detects, at 2066, whetherthe person is live. If the liveness is to be detected using biometricinformation according to the previously set requirement, the livenesscontroller 2020 interfaces with the person to gather dynamicallygenerated biometric information from the person and detects, at 2068,whether the person is live. If the set requirement is to rely on bothnon-biometric and biometric information to detect liveness of theperson, the liveness detection controller 2020 will carry out theoperations based on both.

Detecting liveness may be based on the dynamically gathered informationand the information previously set for detecting liveness of the recordowner and stored in the non-biometric and biometric authenticationinformation storages 2015 and 2025, respectively. For example, to detectliveness of an iris, the record owner may previously have stored irisinformation in the authentication information store 2025, allowing alight strobing approach to detect liveness. For that purpose, during theset up operation, the biometric information configuration unit 2010 mayhave interfaced with the record owner to gather a series of iris imagescaptured when light is applied to the eye at an agreed frequency. Thisseries of iris images may be stored in the biometric authenticationinformation storage 2025 (corresponding to the iris image of the recordowner) under the record owner and retrieved so that they can be comparedwith the dynamically collected iris images of the person beingauthenticated under the same light strobing conditions. If thepreviously captured iris images under different lighting conditionsmatch with the iris images dynamically captured under the same lightingcondition, the person is live. The match may not be exact but may bewithin a specified range of confidence. If there is no match, the“person” being authenticated is not live.

In some embodiments, it may be required that all requirements designatedfor liveness detection have to be satisfied in order to consider a passof the liveness detection. This is shown in FIG. 20C. That is, if any ofthe requirements related to liveness detection is not satisfied,determined at 2070, the liveness detection controller 2020 responds, at2072, to the authentication controller 2035 that the authenticationfails, which may cause the authentication controller 2035 to output anauthentication result indicating a failure. In some embodiments, e.g.,in a less restrictive application, not all requirements related toliveness detection have to be satisfied. For example, when any one ofthe requirements is met, the person is considered live.

When the authentication controller 2035 is informed that the livenessdetection is successful (by the liveness detection controller 2020), itproceeds to determine the requirements for authenticating the personclaiming to be the record owner. If biometric based authentication isneeded, determined at 2074, the authentication controller 2035 invokesthe biometric authentication unit 2045 with information needed, e.g.,the identifier of the record owner. Upon being invoked, the biometricauthentication unit 2045 performs, at 2078, authentication of the personbased on previously stored baseline biometric information of the recordowner. In performing biometric based authentication, various dataprocessing steps may be performed to ensure quality. Generally, theprocessing steps may include data pre-processing to produce qualityimage, feature extraction to identify from the pre-processed imagesrelevant features, matching the features extracted from thepre-processed image with features of the baseline biometric information,and then making an authentication decision based on the matching result.For example, based on an acquired iris image of the person beingauthenticated, pre-processing may include analyzing the images to applycertain operations to, e.g., remove any visible reflection in the eyesdue to, e.g., external light, or apply hue filtering of the image inorder to normalize the image. Such processing may be deployed to ensurethat the baseline image features of an iris of a person and the acquiredimage features of the same iris are actually comparable even though theimages are captured at different times of the same person underdifferent lighting conditions. Similarly, certain pre-processing may beapplied to images captured with a person's face to normalize so thatlight conditions or other factors will have a minimum impact on thequality of the authentication.

Referring back to FIG. 20C, if non-biometric based authentication isneeded, determined at 2074, the authentication controller 2035 invokesthe non-biometric authentication unit 2040 with information needed,e.g., the identifier of the record owner. Upon being invoked, thenon-biometric authentication unit 2045 performs, at 2076, authenticationof the person based on previously stored non-biometric information ofthe record owner. In some situations, both biometric and non-biometricbased authentication are required and thus both will be carried outaccording to the requirements. If the authentication requirements aresatisfied, either fully or partially (not shown), determined at 2080,the authentication controller 2035 responds, at 2082, to the requestindicating that the authentication is successful. Otherwise, theauthentication controller 2035 responds, at 2072, to the requestindicating that the authentication has failed.

The authentication unit in FIG. 20A may further include a reverseinformation search engine 2019 related to identifying high riskauthentication information and archiving such information in storage2017 so that the use of high risk authentication information may becontrolled to minimize risks. Such high risk authentication informationmay be utilized by the non-biometric information configuration unit 2005and the biometric information configuration unit 2010 as reference toscreen any authentication information related to record owners and blockoff those that pose security risks via replay attacks. Such high riskauthentication information may be identified by the reverse informationsearch engine 2019 from different information sources. Such informationsources may include, but is not limited to, online sites, social mediasources, public records, organization registrations such as schools,television networks, etc.

High risk authentication information may include both non-biometric andbiometric information. For instance, from Internet sources, there arelarge number of images available of different people or any parts ofsuch people, e.g., fingerprints, faces, irises, etc. Some of such imagesmay be of high quality and may be used for malicious reasons, e.g., tofake authentication. For instance, if a picture of a person's face has areasonable orientation and adequately detailed, 3D facial features ofthe person may be constructed and used to make s fake face in 3D. Asanother example, a high resolution picture of a person may provideenough information to generate a picture of the person's iris. This isillustrated in FIG. 20D, which shows a set of pictures of differentpeople accessible from the Internet. Some of them may be of such highresolution as to allow generation of fraudulent authenticationinformation.

In some embodiments, with the high risk authentication informationstored in 2017, the non-biometric and biometric informationconfiguration units 2005 and 2010 may check, for each piece ofauthentication information to be set up for a record owner, whethersimilar information exists in the high risk information archive 2017. Ifso, the non-biometric and biometric information configuration unit 2005and 2010 may refuse to use the piece of information to set up theauthentication profile. Such checks may be performed regularly. In somesituations, after a certain face picture of a record owner has been setup for authentication, a regular check by the reverse information searchengine 2019 identifies that high risk face pictures associated with thesame record owner are now available on the Internet, the reverseinformation search engine 2019 may record such high risk pictures in thestorage 2017 under the record owner. In this way, when next time theauthentication controller 2035 invokes the biometric authentication unit2045, it may first check the high risk authentication informationarchive to retrieve the high risk pictures and passes on to thebiometric authentication unit 2045, which may then adjust itsauthentication strategy accordingly. The adjustment may include otherauthentication information instead of the face. In this way, thesecurity of the authentication is further improved.

FIG. 21A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of the livenessdetection unit 2020, according to an embodiment of the present teaching.In this exemplary embodiment, the liveness detection unit 2020 comprisesan instruction processing unit 2120, a detection controller 2130, aliveness detection interface 2110, and a number of detectors, each ofwhich is designated to detect liveness in a specific modality, includinga non-biometric based detector 2150, a face based liveness detector2160, an iris based liveness detector 2170, a fingerprint based livenessdetector 2180, and a palm based liveness detector 2190. As discussedherein with reference to FIG. 19B, liveness detection based onfingerprint and palm may be carried out in using of vein present in thefingerprint and the palm. Details related to iris based livenessdetection are provided with reference to FIGS. 22A-27B.

In terms of face based liveness detection, different approaches may beadopted. To detect a fraudulent access request, a challenge/responsedetection process may be deployed, during which the person beingauthenticated may be required to put up a gesture. For instance, achallenge may be to request the person to present an action, such as asmile, frown, left eye blink, saying “oh”, squinting, etc. The detectionsystem may capture the image of the person performing the gesture andanalyze the visual features captured in the image to determine whetherthe person complied with the request as evidence of being live.

In another example of face based liveness detection, the person may beprovided or presented something that is generally believed will causethe person to react. The detection system then observes, learns, andmeasures the biofeedback of the person to the challenge. For example,the detection system may present an image of a cute kitten/puppy, aphoto of favorite scenery, or playback of a favorite piece of music, apicture of a favorite dish, etc. Such prompt may be selected based on aknown profile or preferences of the record owner and set up as thebaseline requirements set up with the record owner for the purpose ofdetecting liveness at the time of each access request. In someembodiments, smart devices such as a smart watch and other peripheralssuch as a Fitbit may be used to measure biofeedback over time, learningheart rate, gait, other skin coloration or temperature changes, pulseresponses to stimuli, verifying the presence of the individual.

FIG. 21B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the livenessdetection controller 2020, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. In operation, when the instruction processing unit 2120 in theliveness detection controller 2020 receives, at 2100, an instruction tocarry out the liveness detection (e.g., from the authenticationcontroller 2035), it invokes the lives detection controller 2130 todetermine, at 2105, how to detect the liveness based on, e.g.,information stored in a liveness detection configuration 2140 (which maybe set up during the initial set up based on, e.g., the authenticationinformation that has been set up and stored in the non-biometric andbiometric authentication information storages 2015 and 2025,respectively).

If non-biometric based liveness detection has been set up, the livenessdetection controller 2130 invokes the non-biometric based detector 2150to detect, at 2125, liveness of the person by acquiring certainnon-biometric information from the person who claims to be the recordowner via the liveness detection interface 2110. For instance, thenon-biometric based detector 2150 may retrieve the non-biometricliveness detection Q&As and administer a session in which securityquestions are asked and answers from the person is received via theinterface 2110 and compared with the previously stored answers. Inanother example, via the liveness detection interface 2110, the personmay be asked to perform some task (such as entering a text string orselect some target based on cognitive skill) and receive the input ofthe person. Such dynamically collected information from the person maythen be compared with the information stored to determine whether theperson is live.

In some embodiments, both non-biometric and biometric based livenessdetection may be applied. In this case, after the non-biometric basedliveness detection, the process may circle back to the determination asto which modality of the biometric based liveness detection is to beused. This is shown in FIG. 21B that the process flows from 2125 back to2105 to determine whether biometric based detection is to be applied.

If biometric based liveness detection has been set up, the livenessdetection controller 2130 invokes the non-biometric based detector 2150to detect the liveness of the person. Each of the biometric baseddetectors may be activated to determine, at 2115, which modality (ormodalities) of biometric information is used to proceed with theliveness detection. If the face based detector 2160 determines, at 2135,that face information is to be used for liveness detection, it carriesout, at 2145, face based liveness detection. If any of the fingerprintor palm or vein based liveness detection is to be applied, thecorresponding fingerprint or palm based liveness detectors 2180 and 2190proceed to perform, at 2165, hand based liveness detection. If irisinformation is to be used to detect liveness, the iris based livenessdetector 2170 performs, at 2175, liveness detection based on irisinformation. In detecting the liveness based on respective biometricinformation, each liveness detector (2160-2190) may acquire dynamicbiometric information from the person claiming to be the record ownervia the liveness detection interface 2110. Each of the detectors2160-2190 may require that the dynamic biometric information is acquiredin a certain manner and such collected dynamic biometric information isthen compared with what is stored in the biometric authenticationinformation 2025 to determine whether the person is live.

Each of the detectors (2150-2190) may send their individual detectionresult to the liveness detection controller 2130 for an overallassessment. In some embodiments, the overall assessment may require thatall detectors return positive results (i.e., finding that the person islive), which may be applied to an application that requires highsecurity. In some applications, partial positive results may beacceptable which allows some irregularities in data variation and,hence, provides more flexibility yet less security. If the livenessdetection controller 2130 determines, at 2185, that the liveness isapproved, it outputs, at 2197, a liveness detection result withconfirmation. If not, it outputs, at 2195, a liveness detection resultindicating a failed liveness detection.

As discussed herein, a number of iris based liveness detection methodscan be applied to detect the liveness of a person, including lightstrobing, eye movement trajectory tracking based on projected focusdots, obfuscation, and challenge. The concepts associated therewith areillustrated in FIGS. 22A-22E. FIG. 22A depicts the concept of detectingliveness via light strobing, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. The light strobing is to apply some light to the eye of theperson to be authenticated with a randomized light strobing pattern andcapture the images of the iris. Based on such images, features relatedthe iris at issue are identified and then compared with a baselinefeatures of the same iris captured under ambient light. When light isflashed to an eye of a live person, this will lead to some change in thefeatures related to the person's iris. For example, the pupil of theperson may be dilated or constricted so that the shape of the irischanges.

In light strobing based liveness detection, the light strobing patternmay be randomized in each detection to improve security. For example, alight strobing pattern may involve, e.g., randomized strobing pattern aswell as randomized light pattern. A strobing pattern may include aduration to apply light strobes, the number of strobes to be applied,the timing of each strobe (may have variable intervals), and the lengthof each strobe. A light pattern may refer to the lighting relatedparameters associated with each strobe, such as the wavelength andfrequency of the light, the color of the light, the strength ofintensity of the light, etc. The light strobing may be generatedrandomly based on some application sandbox or generated remotely usinglocal input and synchronized with the application sandbox. Strobepatterns can be used as a nonce in this use case.

Iris images of the eye being applied the light strobing may be capturedand evaluated against a baseline iris image captured under the ambientlight condition to detect any change in the iris pattern, e.g., a changein the shape of the iris related to a reaction to the light strobing.Light histogram input may be used to improve iris pattern captureaccuracy, especially in cases where multiple biometric captures are usedduring initial baseline identification, each with varying lightingconditions. In addition to being used to generate a random strobepattern, an ambient lighting histogram may also be used to comparecurrent lighting conditions to the various ambient lighting conditionsused during baseline captures. Using the histogram comparison againstthe initial capture(s) enables implementation of digital filteringtransformations to boost or lower black points or exposure levels toimitate and adjust current conditions over initial conditions.

In FIG. 22A, some of the parameters associated with light strobing areprovided, including the time control of the strobing (e.g., timing at 0,0.25, 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0 second marks), pattern of the strobing as to thelight (e.g., normal light at 0 second, moderately bright light at 0.25second, . . . ,), and the frequency (e.g., 5 strobes per second). Todetect liveness, the light strobes are generated based on randomlygenerated parameters and applied to the eye of the person. At the sametime, control signals are accordingly generated to control a camera tocapture the iris of the person at each point of time when a light strobeis applied according to the frequency. The captured picturescorresponding to the strobing points of time are then compared withbaseline iris images to determine whether the person is live. If theperson is live, the stored pictures captured from the record owner atthe time of set up authentication may then be compared with the irisimage captured from the person at the time of authentication to confirmidentity of the person. Details related to the liveness detection basedon light strobing are provided with reference to FIGS. 24A-24B.

FIG. 22B depicts the concept of detecting liveness via tracking eyemovement trajectory, according to an embodiment of the present teaching.To detect liveness of an iris, focus dots are generated with certainchanging coordinates and projected to a screen. The person to beauthenticated is directed to eye tracking the projected dots. Themovement of the eye of the person is tracked which forms a trajectory asshown in the grid in FIG. 11B. The tracked eye movement trajectory iscompared with the designed trajectory of the focus dots. If the trackedtrajectory matches with the movement trajectory tracked, the person isconsidered to be live. The match does not need to be an exact match butcertain degree of similarity between the two trajectories may berequired.

FIG. 22C depicts the concept of detecting liveness via obfuscation,according to an embodiment of the present teaching. This concept ofdetecting liveness requires the person being authenticated cooperate andfollow an agreed protocol. In setting up the baseline authenticationinformation including the protocol or information to be used to detectliveness, an obfuscation protocol may be mutually agreed upon betweenthe record owner and the authenticating party (a trusted entity or thetransaction engine 150). For example, in a period of multiple days, therecord owner is required to wear a contact lens of a different colors oneach of the days in the period during this period and each day isrequired to be a specific color (may not need to be different colors onall days). In some embodiments, the obfuscation pattern may not belimited to use of solid colors. In addition, the obfuscation pattern tobe used for authentication may not be limited to what is observed fromthe center of the lens and obfuscation patters observed in othernon-center areas of the lens may also be used for authentication, e.g.,an area just inside of the outer edge of the lens.

In some embodiments, other means may also be used to implement theobfuscation based liveness detection. For example, instead of contactlens, glasses may be used to achieve the same, including normal glasses,sunglasses, or snap-ons with different colors applied according to aprotocol. In this mode of operation, wearing lenses (whether contact,normal, sunglass, or snap-ons) according to a schedule creates a patternon the eyes that a mobile camera can pick up. The iris pattern is seenthrough the lens, plus a random pattern superimposed thereon. Thepatterns would vary from person to person and on a daily rotation oreven other rotations.

In some embodiments, when one mode of operation cannot proceed, e.g.,the person lost a particular contact lens, certain fall back mechanismsmay be initiated (not shown in figures). For example, if a contact lensis lost on a certain day, one permitted fall back alternative is toallow the person to be authenticated using instead lens covers with maybe associated with a specified period in which such fallback approach ispermitted (e.g., one day only). In some embodiments, a more generalfallback alternative may be to turn off biometrics and fallback tonon-biometric based detection such as using, e.g., a verification keystored at a secure location.

As the contact lens of a certain color serves as a filter to the irispicture, the iris image captured on each specific day should possesscertain characteristics associated with the filtering effect. Forexample, as illustrated in FIG. 22C, a six day period is set to have adifferent color on each day, e.g., 1^(st) day gray, 2^(nd) day yellow,3^(rd) day purple, 4^(th) day pink, 5^(th) day green, and 6^(th) dayblue. Such knowledge may be set up so that only the record owner knowsthe schedule. A starting date may also be set so that the cycles repeatfor every 6 days. On a specific day, the liveness detection mechanismdetermines the day within each cycle based on the starting date and thencaptures an image of the iris of the person with a specific contactlens. Based on the iris image, it can be determined whether the personcomplies with the agreed protocol based on an analysis of the irisimage.

FIGS. 22D-22E depict the concept of detecting liveness viachallenges/responses, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. Similar to challenges that can be applied using non-biometricinformation (e.g., request the person to type something), challengesused with respect to biometric based liveness detection may be directedto the requests to the person to provide biometric information createdin response to the requests. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 22D,the liveness detection mechanism may ask the person to wink his/her eyeand then capture an image of the person. There are other challenges thatcan be presented to the person. Another example is to ask the person tomake a happy face and capture an image, as shown in FIG. 22E. Thesechallenges, if followed, may yield pictures of the person withreasonably distinct and detectable features. For instance, when a personwinks his/her eye, an analysis of the image captured such a response tothe challenge may extract facial features that represent winking, e.g.,one eye is bigger than the other. Similarly, when the person responds toa challenge asking him/her to make a happy face, an analysis of an imagecapturing the response may detect facial features that correspond to asmile face (e.g., smile with eyes are arched, and mouth corners areelevated).

FIG. 23A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of the irisbased liveness detector 2170, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. In this illustrated diagram, the iris based liveness detector2170 is configured to be able to detect liveness based on any of theliveness detection methods as disclosed in FIGS. 22A-22E and anycombination thereof. The exemplary iris based liveness detector 2170includes various peripherals 2302, an instruction processing unit 2300,an iris liveness detection controller 2305, a light strobing baseddetector 2315, a focus dots based detector 2320, a dynamic challengebased detector 2325, an obfuscation based detector 2330, and an outputgenerator 2335. The peripherals 2302 may reside at the record ownerdevice and may be controlled either locally (e.g., if the authenticationis performed by the record owner application) or remotely (if theauthenticating party is remote). Such peripherals may include one ormore light source(s), one or more cameras (which can be the camera ofthe record owner device), a display screen on which focus dots may bedisplayed over time for the eye to follow or to display someinstructions.

The detectors based on different methods 2315-2330 may conduct theliveness detection based on information stored in the biometricauthentication information 2025 as well as iris liveness detectionprofiles 2310 which may specify certain parameters or protocolsassociated with liveness detection. Such parameters or protocols may bedynamic or static. For example, in using light strobes to detectliveness, the frequency and lighting parameters may be specified thereinand such parameters may be dynamically adjusted in order to furtherimprove security. In operation, the iris based iris detector 2170 isactivated by the detection controller 2130 according to a configurationrelated to a record owner as to how the liveness is to be detected.

FIG. 23B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the iris basedliveness detector 2170, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. Upon receiving an activation signal for iris based livenessdetection at 2340, the instruction processing unit 2300 invokes the irisliveness detection controller 2305, which determines, at 2345, which ofthe iris based liveness detection approaches is to be used based on theconfiguration stored in an iris detection profiles 2310. If it isdetermined, at 2350, that light strobing approach is to be used, theiris liveness detection controller 2305 invokes the light strobing baseddetector 2315 to perform, at 2355, iris liveness detection based onlight strobing. Details related to light strobing are provided withreference to FIGS. 24A-24B.

If it is determined, at 2350, that a focus dots based approach is to beused, the iris liveness detection controller 2305 invokes the focus dotsbased detector 2320 to perform, at 2360, iris liveness detection basedon focus dots projection and eye movement tracking. Details related tolight strobing are provided with reference to FIGS. 25A-25B. If it isdetermined, at 2350, that a challenge approach is to be used, the irisliveness detection controller 2305 invokes the dynamic challenge baseddetector 2325 to perform, at 2365, iris liveness detection based ondynamic challenges. Details related to light strobing are provided withreference to FIGS. 26A-26B. If it is determined, at 2350, that anobfuscation approach is to be used, the iris liveness detectioncontroller 2305 invokes the obfuscation based detector 2330 to perform,at 2370, iris liveness detection based on light strobing. Detailsrelated to light strobing are provided with reference to FIGS. 24A-24B.In some embodiments, the liveness of an iris may be detected using morethan one of the disclosed approaches. For example, a person to beauthenticated may be asked to track focus dots displayed on a screen andto make a happy face.

In some embodiments, each of the invoked detectors will perform livenessdetection based on what is specified in the biometric authenticationinformation storage 2025. In some embodiments, an iris liveness detector(any of 2315-2330) may also utilize some dynamically configuredparameters, e.g., stored in the iris liveness detection profiles 2310 inperforming liveness detection. Each detector (2315-2330) returns itsdetection result to the output generator 2335, which may then determine,at 2375, whether the iris at issue is live. When the iris livenessdetection is performed in more than one mode, the output generator 2335may employ either an OR an AND function to combine the detection resultsfrom different detectors to determine whether the person is live. If theperson is considered live, determined at 2375, the output generator 2335generates, at 2380, an output signal indicating a pass and sends out, at2390, the output signal (e.g., to the detection controller 2130 in FIG.21A). If the detected is considered failed (no liveness is detected),the output generator 2335 generates, at 2385, an output signalindicating a security alert and sends out the output signal at 2390.

FIG. 24A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of the lightstrobing based detector 2315, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. In this mode of operation, liveness of an iris is detectedbased on reaction of eyes detected when light strobes are applied to theeyes. A live person should react to light strobes when the light isshining to the eyes. For example, when a live person reacts to theshining lights of, e.g., varying colors with different wavelength orintensity, the shape of irises of his/her eyes will change. When such achange is detected from the images captured during the light strobingprocess, it can be used to confirm that the person is live. In theillustrated embodiment, the light strobing based detector 2315 comprisesa light strobing control signal generator 2400, an ambient baselinegenerator 2002, a synchronized capturing signal generator 2420, a lightstrobing emission controller 2415, a synchronized camera controller2425, a synchronized picture capturing unit 2435, and an iris livenessdeterminer 2440. There are also peripheral devices, e.g., a light source2417 and a camera 2419, which may be located on a record owner deviceand controlled by various components as described herein.

FIG. 24B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the light strobingbased detector 2315, according to an embodiment of the present teaching.In operation, when the light strobing signal generator 2400 receives, at2445, a request for performing light strobing based liveness detection,it may first, at 2447, establish the baseline iris profile of the personunder the ambient light condition (e.g., without light strobing). Basedon this baseline, a detection in a change in iris observed when lightstrobing is applied may be used to confirm whether the iris captured inthe baseline represents an iris of a live person. Such a baselineestablished under the ambient light may be used both for generatinglight strobing parameters (against the baseline ambient light) and forcomparing the iris images captured in a baseline image of the person andthe iris images captured under light strobing conditions.

In this illustrated embodiments, the light strobing control signalgenerator 2400 may randomize strobing parameters and then generatecontrol signals corresponding to such randomized strobing parameters. Insome embodiments, the randomized parameters may include strobingparameters and strobing light parameters. Exemplary strobing parametersinclude during of the strobing, a number of times strobing light is tobe applied to the eyes, intervals (can be variable intervals) betweenadjacent strobes, and a length in light of each strobing to be applied,etc. Exemplary strobing light parameters may includefrequency/wavelength of each strobing light, intensity of each strobinglight, and the color of each strobing light. Generation of each of theseparameters may be randomized according to some profile or models storedin, e.g., 2405 (randomizing models used to randomize strobingparameters) and 2410 (randomizing models used for randomizing lightparameters for the strobes). In some embodiments, the strobing parameterrandomizing models 2405 may be dynamically configured based on, e.g.,the baseline established by 2447 with respect to the current ambientlight conditions. For example, the current ambient light conditioncaptured in the baseline may be used to specify the range of length oftime for each strobing signal, e.g., a darker condition may require thatthe strobing signals to have a longer exposure time. The strobing lightparameter randomizing models 2410 may also be dynamically configured bythe ambient baseline generator 2447 based on observed current ambientlight conditions. For instance, a range of color/intensity for thestrobes that ensure effectiveness of liveness detection may depend onthe current ambient light conditions.

Based on such retrieved operational parameters, the light strobingcontrol signal generator 2400 generates, at 2450, control signals forgenerating the light strobes applied to the eye of the person to beauthenticated. Such control signals are generated in accordance with therandomly generated strobing parameters, which dictate a duration of timeto apply light strobing, how many strobes to apply, when to apply eachstrobe, how long is each strobe, and the randomly generated lightparameters, which include the frequency/wavelength/color/intensity foreach of the strobes. To operate synchronously, the synchronizedcapturing signal generator 2420 is invoked to generate, at 2455, imagecapture control signals that are synchronized with the strobingparameters as to duration, timing, and length of each of the strobes. Inthis way, images of the iris of the person at the moments strobes areapplied may be captured for liveness detection.

The light strobing control signals generated by the light strobingcontrol signal generator 2400 may also be sent to the light strobingemission controller 2415, which controls, at 2460, the light source 2417to emit the light strobes in accordance with the control signals interms of the duration, timing, length, frequency, wavelength, and colorassociated with each of the randomly generated strobes. At the sametime, the image capture control signals generated by the synchronizedcapturing signal generator 2420 are sent to the synchronized cameracontroller 2425, which controls, at 2465, the synchronized picturecapturing unit 2435 to acquire images of the iris from camera 2419synchronously at the times when the light strobes are applied. Theimages of the iris captured by the synchronized picture capturing unit2435 are analyzed by the iris liveness determiner 2440 to determine,based on the baseline established under the ambient light condition,whether any change in the iris is detected. Such a change may be achange in iris' shape due to a reaction to light strobing that shouldoccur to a live person. If a change is detected from the capturedimages, determined at 2470, the iris liveness determiner 2440 generates,at 2475, an iris liveness detection output indicating a pass of the testand transmits, at 2485, the output signal. If no movement is detected,the iris liveness determiner 2440 generates, at 2480, the output with asecurity escalation signal and transmits, at 2485, the output signal.

FIG. 25A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of the focusdots based detector 2320, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. In this mode of operation, liveness is detected by trackingthe eye movement of the person to be authenticated when focus dots areprojected, according to some planned trajectory, on a display screen andthe person is asked to follow the displayed focus dots. An eye movementtrajectory is then detected by tracking the person's eye movements. Ifthe tracked trajectory is consistent with the planned trajectory, theperson is considered live. In this illustrated embodiment, the focusdots based detector 2320 comprises a trajectory generator 2500, atrajectory planner 2505, a focus dots generator 2510, a displayparameter controller 2515, a focus dots display controller 2520, acamera controller 2525, an eye movement tracker 2530, and an irisliveness determiner 2540.

FIG. 25B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the focus dots baseddetector 2320, according to an embodiment of the present teaching. Inoperation, when the trajectory generator 2500 receives, at 2545, arequest for detecting iris liveness based on focused dots, thetrajectory generator 2500 proceeds to generate a trajectory along whichfocus dots are to be generated and displayed to the person to beauthenticated. The trajectory of the focus dots may be pre-configured atthe time the biometric authentication information is set up. In thiscase, the trajectory generator 2500 may access such set up from thebiometric authentication information storage 2025 to retrieve thetrajectory parameters.

In some embodiments, the trajectory to be used in detecting liveness maybe dynamically generated (more secure). In this case, the biometricauthentication information 2025 may provide some parameters that can beused to dynamically create a trajectory to be used for livenessdetection. In this case, the trajectory generator 2500 may invoke thetrajectory planner 2505 to create a trajectory, e.g., in some case basedon information stored in the biometric authentication informationstorage 2025. Based on either embodiments, a trajectory is generated at2550 and based on such a trajectory, the trajectory generator 2500invokes the focus dots generator 2510 to generate, at 2555 in FIG. 25B,focus dots along the trajectory. In some embodiments, the focus dots maybe generated based on some parameters from the display parametercontroller 2515 so that the focus dots, when displayed to the person,will exhibit certain characteristics. For example, each of the focusdots may need to have a certain pattern (e.g., a solid circle or square)with some dimensions (e.g., a certain diameter) or certain color (e.g.,green or red). Such display parameters may be used in conjunction withthe positions of the focus dots so that focus dots can be rendered on adisplay visible to the person at positions along the trajectory withcertain visual characteristics.

The focus dots generated along the trajectory may then be sent, withrendering parameters, to the focus dots display controller 2520 so thatthe focus dots display controller 2520 may control to display, at 2560,the focus dots according to the rendering parameters. The generatedtrajectory may be sent to both the camera controller 2525 and the irisliveness determiner 2540. Upon receiving the trajectory, the cameracontroller 2525 may then proceed to control the camera to capture theimages or video of the eyes of the person to obtain a series of images,which are then used by the eye movement tracker 2530 to track, at 2565,the eye movement and generate a tracked eye movement trajectory 2535.The tracked eye movement trajectory 2535 is then compared with thetrajectory generated by the trajectory generator 2500. If the trackedeye movement trajectory matches with, determined at 2570, the generatedor planned trajectory, the person is considered live. The match may notbe exact match and a degree of similarity between the two trajectoriesthat will be considered to be acceptable may be set according toapplication needs. When there is a match, the iris liveness determiner2540 generates, at 2575, an output signal indicating a pass and sendsout, at 2585, the output signal. If there is no match, it is consideredno live person and the iris liveness determiner 2540 generates, at 2580,an output signal indicating a security escalation alert and outputs theoutput signal at 2585.

FIG. 26A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of the dynamicchallenge based detector 2325, according to an embodiment of the presentteaching. In this mode of operation, liveness is detected by determiningwhether the person being authenticated is able to follow instruction tomake certain facial expression. For example, when a live person is askedto wink his/her eye, following the instruction may cause an undetectableiris in one eye. If a live person is asked to make a happy face,following the instruction may cause that a portion of the iris maybecome undetectable or occluded or changed. Although this mode ofoperation is presented herein in the context of iris based livenessdetection, challenges may also be used for face based livenessdetection. For instance, when the person makes a certain facialexpression, certain signature facial features may be detected to confirmthe expression. If a person winks his left eye, the shape of the lefteye may change to a curve. If a person makes a happy face, both eyes maybecome more curved. In this illustrated embodiment, the mechanismdisclosed herein for challenge based liveness detection may be used forboth iris based liveness detection and for face based livenessdetection.

In the illustrated embodiment depicted in FIG. 26A, the dynamicchallenge based detector 2325 comprises a challenge generator 2600, achallenge requesting unit 2610, a camera controller 2615, a challengefeature extractor 2620, a challenge feature determiner 2630, and afeature matching unit 2635. FIG. 26B is a flowchart of an exemplaryprocess of the dynamic challenge based detector 2325, according to anembodiment of the present teaching. In operation, when the challengegenerator 2600 receives, at 2640, a request to perform livenessdetection, it generates, at 2645, a challenge. The dynamic challenge maybe generated based on some pre-configured parameters stored in thebiometric authentication information in 2025 or based on challengegeneration models stored in storage 2607. Information related to thegenerated challenge may then be sent to the challenge requesting unit2610 so that the person to be authenticated may be asked, at 2650, torespond to the challenge. For example, if the challenge generated is toask the person to wink his/her left eye, the challenge requesting unit2610 requests the person to wink the left eye.

To enable liveness detection based on a response from the person inresponse to the challenge, the challenge generator 2600 may invoke thechallenge feature determiner 2630 to generate, at 2655, challengefeatures that may be expected to be observed from the person if theperson is live. Such expected challenge features may be determined basedon challenge feature configuration 2605, which may specify, e.g., foreach challenge that may be used, features expected to be observed. Forinstance, for challenge of making a happy face, expected features forthis challenge may include narrowed eyes with curved shapes. Suchexpected features may be retrieved by the challenge feature determiner2630 based on the type of challenge to be used.

The camera controller 2615 is activated to control the camera 2619 tocapture images of the person after the challenge request is made. Theacquired images of the person after the challenge request is made maythen be acquired, at 1660, and sent to the challenge feature extractor2620. The expected challenge features retrieved by the challenge featuredeterminer 2630 may also be made available to the challenge featureextractor 2620 to guide it to identify from the acquired images of theperson. If the person is live, some features may be identified from theacquired images. Otherwise, the expected features may not be found.After analyzing the acquired images, the features so identified (or lackthereof) may then be sent to the feature matching unit 2635, whichcompares the expected challenge features from the challenge featuredeterminer 2630 with the features from the challenge feature extractor2620 to determine, at 2665, whether they match with each other. Whenthere is a match, the feature matching unit 2635 generates, at 2670, anoutput signal indicating a pass and sends out, at 2680, the outputsignal. If there is no match, the feature matching unit 2630 determinesthere is no live person and generates, at 2675, an output signalindicating a security escalation alert and outputs the output signal at2680.

FIG. 27A depicts an exemplary high level system diagram of theobfuscation based detector 2330, according to an embodiment of thepresent teaching. As disclosed herein, to detect iris liveness based onan obfuscation scheme, the person being authenticated needs toproactively follow an agreed upon protocol, e.g., wearing contact lensof different colors according to the protocol. Such contact lens ofdifferent colors serve as a mask or filter of the iris and the livenessdetection is to identify certain visual features of the iris caused bycertain contact lens on certain days. In this illustrated embodiment,the obfuscation based detector 2330 comprises a dynamic obfuscationdeterminer 2700, a predicted feature generator 2735, a cameralcontroller 2710, an obfuscated picture capturing unit 2720, anobfuscated iris feature estimator 2730, and a feature matching unit2740.

FIG. 27B is a flowchart of an exemplary process of the obfuscation baseddetector 2330, according to an embodiment of the present teaching. Inoperation, when the dynamic obfuscation determiner 2700 receives, at2745, a request for performing obfuscation based liveness detection, itgenerates, at 2750, a challenge based on previously set personalizedobfuscation configuration 2705 or a preset protocol. To enable livenessdetection, the predicted feature generator 2735 generates, at 2755, irisfeatures expected to be observed from the person's iris if the personfollows the agreed protocol. To start the detection, the person beingauthenticated is requested to follow the obfuscation protocol at 2760.The person may already wear the contact lens of a certain colorfollowing the protocol or the person may put on the contact lens of acertain color after being asked.

The camera controller 2710 may then be activated to control a camera2715 to capture, at 2765, the picture of the iris of the person. Whenthe picture is acquired by the obfuscated picture capturing unit 2720,it is sent to the obfuscated feature estimator 2730, which analyzes theimage and identify features of the iris. The iris features estimatedfrom the capture live picture are then compared with, by the featurematching unit 2740, the predicted or expected features from thepredicted feature generator 2735. If the feature matching unit 2740determines, at 2770, that the estimated obfuscated iris features matchwith the predicted iris features, it generates, at 2775, an outputsignal indicating a pass and sends out, at 2785, the output signal. Ifthere is no match, it is considered no live person and the featurematching unit 2740 generates, at 2780, an output signal indicating asecurity escalation alert and outputs the output signal at 2785.

FIG. 28 depicts the architecture of a mobile device which can be used torealize a specialized system, that at least partially implements thepresent teaching. In this example, the user device on which content maybe exchanged and interacted with and signals may be transmittedbidirectionally is a mobile device 2800, which includes, but is notlimited to, a smart phone, a tablet, a music player, a handled gamingconsole, a global positioning system (GPS) receiver, and a wearablecomputing device (e.g., eyeglasses, wrist watch, etc.), or in any otherform factor. The mobile device 2800 in this example includes one or morecentral processing units (CPUs) 2840, one or more graphic processingunits (GPUs) 2830, a display 2820, a memory 2860, a communicationplatform 2810, such as a wireless communication module, storage 2890,and one or more input/output (I/O) devices 2850. Any other suitablecomponent, including but not limited to a system bus or a controller(not shown), may also be included in the mobile device 2800. As shown inFIG. 28, a mobile operating system 2870, e.g., iOS, Android, WindowsPhone, etc., and one or more applications 2880 may be loaded into thememory 2860 from the storage 2890 in order to be executed by the CPU2840. The applications 2880 may include any suitable mobile apps forreceiving and rendering information or display electronic signals of anysort on the mobile device 2800. Communications with the mobile device2800 may be achieved via the I/O devices 2850.

To implement various modules, units, and some of their functionalitiesdescribed in the present disclosure, computer hardware platforms may beused as the hardware platform(s) for one or more of the elementsdescribed herein. The hardware elements, operating systems andprogramming languages of such computers are conventional in nature, andit is presumed that those skilled in the art are adequately familiartherewith to adapt those technologies to the present teaching asdisclosed herein. A computer with user interface elements may be used toimplement a personal computer (PC) or other type of work station orterminal device, although a computer may also act as a server ifappropriately programmed. It is believed that those skilled in the artare familiar with the structure, programming and general operation ofsuch computer equipment and as a result the drawings should beself-explanatory.

FIG. 29 depicts the architecture of a computing device which can be usedto realize a specialized system implementing, partially or fully, thepresent teaching. Such a specialized system incorporating the presentteaching has a functional block diagram illustration of a hardwareplatform which includes user interface elements. The computer may be ageneral purpose computer or a special purpose computer. Both can be usedto implement a specialized system for the present teaching. Thiscomputer 2900 may be used to implement any component of the presentteaching, as described herein. For example, any parties in theself-sovereign data management framework 100 such as the serviceproviders 120, the trusted entities 160, the transaction engine 150, andthe secure transaction platform 170 may be implemented on a computersuch as computer 2900, via its hardware, software program, firmware, ora combination thereof. Although only one such computer is shown, forconvenience, the computer functions relating to the present teaching asdescribed herein may be implemented in a distributed fashion on a numberof similar platforms, to distribute the processing load.

The computer 2900, for example, includes COM ports 2950 connected to andfrom a network connected thereto to facilitate data communications. Thecomputer 2900 also includes a central processing unit (CPU) 2920, in theform of one or more processors, for executing program instructions. Theexemplary computer platform includes an internal communication bus 2910,program storage and data storage of different forms, e.g., disk 2970,read only memory (ROM) 2930, or random access memory (RAM) 2940, forvarious data files to be processed and/or communicated by the computer,as well as possibly program instructions to be executed by the CPU. Thecomputer 2900 also includes an I/O component 2960, supportinginput/output flows between the computer and other components thereinsuch as user interface elements 2980. The computer 2900 may also receiveprogramming and data via network communications.

Hence, aspects of the methods of information management and/or otherprocesses, as outlined above, may be embodied in programming. Programaspects of the technology may be thought of as “products” or “articlesof manufacture” typically in the form of executable code and/orassociated data that is carried on or embodied in a type of machinereadable medium. Tangible non-transitory “storage” type media includeany or all of the memory or other storage for the computers, processorsor the like, or associated modules thereof, such as varioussemiconductor memories, tape drives, disk drives and the like, which mayprovide storage at any time for the software programming.

All or portions of the software may at times be communicated through anetwork such as the Internet or various other telecommunicationnetworks. Such communications, for example, may enable loading of thesoftware from one computer or processor into another, for example, froma management server or host computer of a search engine operator orother systems into the hardware platform(s) of a computing environmentor other system implementing a computing environment or similarfunctionalities in connection with query/ads matching. Thus, anothertype of media that may bear the software elements includes optical,electrical and electromagnetic waves, such as used across physicalinterfaces between local devices, through wired and optical landlinenetworks and over various air-links. The physical elements that carrysuch waves, such as wired or wireless links, optical links or the like,also may be considered as media bearing the software. As used herein,unless restricted to tangible “storage” media, terms such as computer ormachine “readable medium” refer to any medium that participates inproviding instructions to a processor for execution.

Hence, a machine-readable medium may take many forms, including but notlimited to, a tangible storage medium, a carrier wave medium or physicaltransmission medium. Non-volatile storage media include, for example,optical or magnetic disks, such as any of the storage devices in anycomputer(s) or the like, which may be used to implement the system orany of its components as shown in the drawings. Volatile storage mediainclude dynamic memory, such as a main memory of such a computerplatform. Tangible transmission media include coaxial cables; copperwire and fiber optics, including the wires that form a bus within acomputer system. Carrier-wave transmission media may take the form ofelectric or electromagnetic signals, or acoustic or light waves such asthose generated during radio frequency (RF) and infrared (IR) datacommunications. Common forms of computer-readable media thereforeinclude for example: a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetictape, any other magnetic medium, a CD-ROM, DVD or DVD-ROM, any otheroptical medium, punch cards paper tape, any other physical storagemedium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM and EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM,any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave transporting data orinstructions, cables or links transporting such a carrier wave, or anyother medium from which a computer may read programming code and/ordata. Many of these forms of computer readable media may be involved incarrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions to a physicalprocessor for execution.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that the present teachings areamenable to a variety of modifications and/or enhancements. For example,although the implementation of various components described above may beembodied in a hardware device, it may also be implemented as a softwareonly solution—e.g., an installation on an existing server. In addition,the enhanced ad serving based on user curated native ads as disclosedherein may be implemented as a firmware, firmware/software combination,firmware/hardware combination, or a hardware/firmware/softwarecombination.

While the foregoing has described what are considered to constitute thepresent teachings and/or other examples, it is understood that variousmodifications may be made thereto and that the subject matter disclosedherein may be implemented in various forms and examples, and that theteachings may be applied in numerous applications, only some of whichhave been described herein. It is intended by the following claims toclaim any and all applications, modifications and variations that fallwithin the true scope of the present teachings.

We claim:
 1. A method, implemented on a machine having at least oneprocessor, storage, and a communication platform for secure datamanagement by a service provider, comprising: receiving, from a user viathe communication platform, a request for carrying out a transactionbetween the service provider and the user; determining, based on thetransaction, one or more data items, associated with the user, that needto be validated prior to the transaction; sending, to the user via thecommunication platform, a request seeking to validate the one or moredata items; receiving, by the service provider from the user via thecommunication platform, a cloaked identifier with information related toa trusted party that is designated by the user to store the one or moredata items for the user, wherein the cloaked identifier cloaks privateinformation of the user; sending, by the service provider to the trustedparty via the communication platform, the cloaked identifier with arequest for a validation response; receiving, from the trusted party viathe communication platform, the validation response indicative ofwhether the one or more data items are validated; and proceeding withthe transaction if the validation response indicates that the one ormore data items are validated.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thetrusted party includes one of a trusted entity that is in possession ofthe one or more data items and a transaction engine that is to interfacewith the trusted entity on behalf of the user to seek validation of theone or more data items.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the cloakedidentifier is sent to the trusted party with information surrounding therequest for the validation response to provide contextual information.4. The method of claim 3, wherein the information surrounding therequest for the validation response includes at least one of: date/timeat which the request for the validation response is sent; geographicallocation where the request for the validation response is initiated; aninquiry directed to each of the one or more data items which is thebasis of the validation response; and a response type associated withthe inquiry for each of the one or more data items.
 5. The method ofclaim 3, wherein the cloaked identifier includes at least some accesslimitation which is to be satisfied before an access to at least one ofthe one or more data items is permitted.
 6. The method of claim 5,wherein the information surrounding the request for the validationresponse is to be used to assess whether the at least some accesslimitation is satisfied.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the cloakedidentifier comprises at least one of: a record owner identifiercomprising a string of pseudo-random characters that is ephemeral; and acontextual identity comprising one or more parameters related to thetransaction.
 8. Machine readable non-transitory medium havinginformation recorded thereon for secure data management by a serviceprovider, wherein the information, when read by a machine, causes themachine to perform the following: receiving, from a user, a request forcarrying out a transaction between the service provider and the user;determining, based on the transaction, one or more data items,associated with the user, that need to be validated prior to thetransaction; sending, to the user, a request seeking to validate the oneor more data items; receiving, by the service provider from the user, acloaked identifier with information related to a trusted party that isdesignated by the user to store the one or more data items for the user,wherein the cloaked identifier cloaks private information of the user;sending, by the service provider to the trusted party, the cloakedidentifier with a request for a validation response; receiving, from thetrusted party, the validation response indicative of whether the one ormore data items are validated; and proceeding with the transaction ifthe validation response indicates that the one or more data items arevalidated.
 9. The medium of claim 8, wherein the trusted party includesone of a trusted entity that is in possession of the one or more dataitems and a transaction engine that is to interface with the trustedentity on behalf of the user to seek validation of the one or more dataitems.
 10. The medium of claim 8, wherein the cloaked identifier is sentto the trusted party with information surrounding the request for thevalidation response to provide contextual information.
 11. The medium ofclaim 10, wherein the information surrounding the request for thevalidation response includes at least one of: date/time at which therequest for the validation response is sent; geographical location wherethe request for the validation response is initiated; an inquirydirected to each of the one or more data items which is the basis of thevalidation response; and a response type associated with the inquiry foreach of the one or more data items.
 12. The medium of claim 11, whereinthe cloaked identifier includes at least some access limitation which isto be satisfied before an access to at least one of the one or more dataitems is permitted.
 13. The medium of claim 12, wherein the informationsurrounding the request for the validation response is to be used toassess whether the at least some access limitation is satisfied.
 14. Themedium of claim 8, wherein the cloaked identifier comprises at least oneof: a record owner identifier comprising a string of pseudo-randomcharacters that is ephemeral; and a contextual identity comprising oneor more parameters related to the transaction.
 15. A system for securedata management by a service provider, comprising: a transactioninterface unit of the service provider implemented by a processorcoupled to a memory and configured for receiving, from a user via acommunication platform, a request for carrying out a transaction betweenthe service provider and the user; a validation information determinerof the service provider implemented by the processor coupled to thememory and configured for determining, based on the transaction, one ormore data items, associated with the user, that need to be validatedprior to the transaction; a validation information solicitor of theservice provider implemented by the processor coupled to the memory andconfigured for sending, to the user, a request seeking to validate theone or more data items, and receiving, from the user, a cloakedidentifier with information related to a trusted party that isdesignated by the user to store the one or more data items for the user,wherein the cloaked identifier cloaks private information of the user; avalidation response solicitor of the service provider configured forsending, to the trusted party, the cloaked identifier with a request fora validation response, and receiving, from the trusted party, thevalidation response indicative of whether the one or more data items arevalidated; and a transaction service module of the service providerimplemented by the processor coupled to the memory and configured forproceeding with the transaction if the validation response indicatesthat the one or more data items are validated.
 16. The system of claim15, wherein the trusted party includes one of a trusted entity that isin possession of the one or more data items and a transaction enginethat is to interface with the trusted entity on behalf of the user toseek validation of the one or more data items.
 17. The system of claim15, wherein the cloaked identifier is sent to the trusted party withinformation surrounding the request for the validation response toprovide contextual information.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein theinformation surrounding the request for the validation response includesat least one of: date/time at which the request for the validationresponse is sent; geographical location where the request for thevalidation response is initiated; an inquiry directed to each of the oneor more data items which is the basis of the validation response; and aresponse type associated with the inquiry for each of the one or moredata items.
 19. The system of claim 17, wherein the cloaked identifierincludes at least some access limitation which is to be satisfied beforean access to at least one of the one or more data items is permitted.20. The system of claim 19, wherein the information surrounding therequest for the validation response is to be used to assess whether theat least some access limitation is satisfied.
 21. The system of claim15, wherein the cloaked identifier comprises at least one of: a recordowner identifier comprising a string of pseudo-random characters that isephemeral; and a contextual identity comprising one or more parametersrelated to the transaction.